Orpheus Descending

Thanks showgirl for the heads up on the offer at the @theatremonkey  site, was keen to see this and was on the lookout for an offer and this one a belter.

I’m watching it Sat night.

OFAH?

Tennessee Williams wrote some dark plays but none darker than this one. As befits an Orpheus play, it is set in Hell, the rural deep south where mob violence seethes just under the surface and where years before an Italian immigrant (known locally as The Wop) was burned out and murdered for selling liquor to African Americans (not the term they use, of course). The Wop's daughter, Lady, is our Eurydice, still trapped in the town that destroyed her life and awaiting rescue from an Orpheus, in this case Val Xavier, an itinerant guitar strummer with a way with the ladies. Val, just turned 30 and looking for a restart in his wasted life, has his own issues. And then there's Carol, wild daughter of local gentry, whose role seems to be to force the past into the present for both Lady and Val. It's a potent trio, both literally and symbolically.

And then there's the townspeople who provide the menacing milieu; gossiping, back-stabbing women and brutal, xenophobic men - a cross section of southern "society" that could not be any more damning. And which, needless to say, still resonates today.

It all plays out with a kind of horrible inevitability that works well, the tension being continually ratcheted up, in Tamara Harvey's spare but effective production. The three leads are all excellent, especially Seth Numrich's Val - not just convincing but virtually ideal. Hattie Morahan, although not very Italian, matches him with her intensity and her rage and her desperate neediness and Jemima Rooper is equally fine as the frantic Carol.

It's not an easy play to love - the darkness can be overpowering - but it's gripping theatre, an experience only Tennessee Williams can provide.

Caught the first performance (at the Menier) last week, and thought everything about it was just 'OK'. Performances were fine but nothing particularly noteworthy, the set did what it needed to do (barely), the lighting was great in parts and bad in others. I wouldn't say it was particularly terrible overall, but I won't be telling people to rush to see it. Feel like I got my £10 worth, but glad I didn't pay more.

What is the running time please?

They have moved the interval now. It's an hour 15 minutes first half, 20 minute interval and then an hour second half, so now running at 2 hours 35 all in.

Oh my. This really is not very good. At all.

There's a gaping hole in the production and I'm not sure if it's the writing or this particular presentation of it. I saw the 89 version with Vanessa Redgrave and both film versions and don't remember reacting this way It generates a feeling of 'meh' rather than anything more passionate. No attempt seems to have been made to insert or highlight any relevance to more contemporary thoughts. I have always been a fan of Williams but his gallery of Southern grotesques and eccentrics is exposed here with nothing to back them up. Neither story or set to be fair. The latter appears to have been gathered at a 50% off day at B&Q and features cheap garden furniture and virtually nothing else. Watching the characters is cringe making in the way that we view 1970's sitcoms now, it just feels so out dated. Granted Williams was writing 60 years ago about mostly a time 20 years before that but if Rosmersholm, All My Sons, even The American Clock can feel to have resonance to a modern audience, why does this feel frozen in amber like one of the bugs in Jurassic Park?

The two leads are actually quite miscast. Hattie Morahan, so good in A Doll's House appears to be floundering here and reads a bit young for the role. Seth Numrich brings no sense of danger to the role of the drifter who is stirring up the small town. The scenes between them which should crackle a little bit feel empty, like biting into a doughnut that has no jam. It cheats the audience. Jemima Rooper was very good but it feels like she is from a different (and better) play, she is costumed and made up to look like a slightly deranged over the hill drag queen. There should be a more appropriate way of cluing us into this character than this which rings false.

Disappointingly undiverse cast which if used may have helped to off set the feeling of this being hauled out of mothballs.

Quite a muted response from a 3/4 full audience who were very Chichester (Pale, stale and failing)

Having broken one of my cardinal rules and returned to the Chocolate Starfish today (what can I tell you, interesting cast and cheap ticket) I can report that it safely remains in the top 2 most uncomfortable theatres in London. After the first act my backside felt like I had been sat on jagged concrete and I can only thank the theatre Gods, that this act is reduced from earlier reports. Also the auditorium remains a death trap with everyone having to file out of a single doorway barely wide enough for one. Today was made especially fun with the abundance of sticks etc and the general well being of the assembled folk. Praise the Lord there was no attempt at an evacuation here, we would all have been doomed.

Now swinging it to x3 rants after seeing it tonight.

This did very little except leaving me frustrated as I walked out of the theatre tonight (though other patrons seemed to have gotten something out the piece from overheard discussions). I’ve seen some great TW productions both at the Manc REX and in the WE, unfortunately this isn’t one of them. I knew it would be a bleak play and not really a fun night out at the theatre, but this production just left me cold from start to finish. 

nash16 sums up my thoughts perfectly. I just couldn’t invest any emotional energy into any of the characters and the casting choices for the female leads was just baffling. I was speaking to one lady post show who agreed with me that this was the biggest issue here. The ladies just appeared to be too young for their respective roles (Jemima Roper as an example) and I just couldn’t see the characters that they were portraying as real people. Carol Royal did manage to bring some depth to her character of Vee Talbot and Seth Numeric was ok as Valentine, but I didn’t get that sense of chemistry between the two actors portraying this forbidden relationship. 

Overall a 1* production and the first disappointment I’ve had visiting the MCF. Hopefully my next visit to see “Bridges” will be a better one.

to be fair, there are plenty worse ways to spend a tenner in London on a Saturday night.

4, taking the views of missthelma into account.

LOVED this remark - so accurate and I consider myself proud to be pale, stale and failing!!!