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Post by Honoured Guest on May 8, 2016 9:24:38 GMT
Not to be a nit-picker but is it bestiality if only the head is beast-ly? Ask Ivana.
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Post by David J on May 8, 2016 9:29:00 GMT
I mean, it's right there in the text that Helena offers to let Demetrius use her as his spaniel, and that he threatens to "do [her] mischief in the wood", and that Oberon uses a date-rape drug to trick his wife-figure into non-consensual bestiality, so if you haven't had to answer awkward questions for your kids before now with Midsummer, then you must've seen some pretty placid productions. Oh, the things you don't know my dear Baemax... Anyway whilst I do agree that this is doesnt represent Shakespeare well, I do think this is a great interpretation of the play
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Post by partytentdown on May 8, 2016 9:42:57 GMT
I mean, it's right there in the text that Helena offers to let Demetrius use her as his spaniel, and that he threatens to "do [her] mischief in the wood", and that Oberon uses a date-rape drug to trick his wife-figure into non-consensual bestiality, so if you haven't had to answer awkward questions for your kids before now with Midsummer, then you must've seen some pretty placid productions. Exactly. 400 years of awkward discussions with your kids? get over it. I don't really understand the Telegraph's bizarre write up: www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/to-modernise-or-not-to-modernise-thats-not-the-point---youll-fin/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitterSeems to be saying it's a bad thing that new audiences are being attracted to the theatre. Fair enough hate the show, but its own reviewer gave it a glowing 4 star review!
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Post by waybeyondblue on May 8, 2016 9:53:27 GMT
Saw this last night. It's an entertaining show but at the wrong venue. The Globe provides a period environment in which to perform naturally. There are plenty of other places to put on on a Cirque de Soleil.
I agree about making her mark but it's at the cost of the play. It was interesting looking round at how many crossed arms there were during the happy clappy bits.
Next year's best friend sub is on hold pending Macbeth - screw that one up and I do desire we may become better strangers.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on May 8, 2016 12:16:22 GMT
The writer also recently wrote about how you should only ever listen to The Beatles' 'Revolver' on vinyl as he did when it first came out. So he must be arund sixty or so (I'm not that much younger) but has got stuck in an era and isn't interested in the changes that life brings, well, it is the Telegraph I suppose. EDIT: I just Googled it, he's 58.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2016 16:54:13 GMT
Not to be a nit-picker but is it bestiality if only the head is beast-ly? I think there's enough clues in the text to suggest that Bottom was turned all the way into an ass, from Titania's "methought I was enamoured of an ass" to Bottom's "Methought I was - and methought I had - ", but for ease of telling the story on stage, what with a human actor being easier to direct than an ass, and probably better at delivering dialogue too, plus in the interests of keeping it humorous rather than disgusting, we accept the convention that Bottom just grows ears and a tail, or gets a new head, and makes "heehaw" noises a bunch in between lines. Anyway, it's Oberon's behaviour that I personally find unforgivable, not Titania's, so the bestiality part isn't quiiiiite as relevant as the fairy roofie part.
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Post by peggs on May 8, 2016 21:23:20 GMT
The writer also recently wrote about how you should only ever listen to The Beatles' 'Revolver' on vinyl as he did when it first came out. So he must be arund sixty or so (I'm not that much younger) but has got stuck in an era and isn't interested in the changes that life brings, well, it is the Telegraph I suppose. EDIT: I just Googled it, he's 58. What a grumpy article, so tired of reading how Rice is going to led people talk, cheer and babies in like that wasn't quite likely at the Globe long before she set foot there. This production and the others may or may not be everyone's cup of tea but people have been interpreting Shakespeare, Marlowe for hundreds of years and they've survived so far so I dare say they will continue to do so. The point made re the National and the first production not necessarily being all that is to come is I hope a relevant one, I loathed Everyman but have enjoyed myself there since and am more interested in what seems to be coming out now so that may well ring true for the Globe too.
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Post by peggs on May 8, 2016 21:24:14 GMT
Great review Steve. Makes me wish I had booked just to see what it is all about. But then the balloons...hmmm Oh those balloons and how they scarred you Lynette, maybe these ones wouldn't be so bad?!
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Post by peggs on May 8, 2016 21:26:33 GMT
I mean, it's right there in the text that Helena offers to let Demetrius use her as his spaniel, and that he threatens to "do [her] mischief in the wood", and that Oberon uses a date-rape drug to trick his wife-figure into non-consensual bestiality, so if you haven't had to answer awkward questions for your kids before now with Midsummer, then you must've seen some pretty placid productions. I'm sure they sold us this as a romance with some delightfully skipping fairies at school, we were clearly duped
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Post by lynette on May 8, 2016 21:55:17 GMT
You are right Peggs, at school MND is seen as safe for the younger kids but it is all about sex! Same with Romeo and Juliet which is seen as safe for teenagers. Well, more relevant for sure but teachers rarely share the dirty jokes.
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Post by altamont on May 9, 2016 9:54:28 GMT
I have two tickets for the Sunday 15th performance at 13.00 - front row of the middle gallery (Bay D, A9 and A10) and they cost £40 each. We aren't able to use them now and I'll be returning them to the box office tomorrow for resale - but if anyone is interested, please let me know - they are "print at home" so I can email them.
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Post by Steve on May 10, 2016 19:14:53 GMT
Saw this last night. It's an entertaining show but at the wrong venue. The Globe provides a period environment in which to perform naturally. There are plenty of other places to put on on a Cirque de Soleil. I agree about making her mark but it's at the cost of the play. It was interesting looking round at how many crossed arms there were during the happy clappy bits. Next year's best friend sub is on hold pending Macbeth - screw that one up and I do desire we may become better strangers. Of course we all have different ideas of what the Globe is for. No doubt purists are against female performers and night time shows, illuminated by electric lights. My own personal redline is the Groundling/Seat divide. That brings it's own special energy, that I love. If Emma Rice abolishes groundlings, and installs premium seating in the pit, administered by Lovetheatre, with a £15 booking fee, I'm out lol.
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Post by partytentdown on May 10, 2016 19:27:00 GMT
Photos of Taming of the Shrew they've tweeted look like costume/set isn't modern day or Elizabethan but that sort of generic olde style they used in Hamlet etc.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 25, 2016 9:33:08 GMT
Overheard from a groundling in the interval last night: Until tonight, I always thought that Shakespeare was a bit proper. Now I know he wrote about real people.
The whole audience loved this show. It made me so happy.
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Post by addictedtotheatre on May 26, 2016 8:16:41 GMT
Saw this yesterday afternoon, and gosh it was entertaining. So much invention! One thing I really liked was that the actors are now miked; yes, its not authentic but open air venues didn't have airliners flying over few minutes in Shakespeare's time.
Anyway, I came home and booked for everything else in the season.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2016 8:23:42 GMT
Saw this yesterday afternoon, and gosh it was entertaining. So much invention! One thing I really liked was that the actors are now miked; yes, its not authentic but open air venues didn't have airliners flying over few minutes in Shakespeare's time. Anyway, I came home and booked for everything else in the season. That bolded bit is honestly the most sensible thing I've heard anyone say about the new season so far. It's so obvious and sensible, and yet the purists rebel against it even though helicopters are a regular thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2016 8:27:20 GMT
YES. Dear lord all I've heard is moans that it's not 'what the Globe was' funny enough not all of us thought the existing Globe was the second coming....anyway I enjoy hearing what's said on stage too.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 26, 2016 8:57:21 GMT
One of the glories of this show is how it directly references and playfully comments upon many past features of Shakespeare's Globe, warmly and generously celebrating some of the eccentricities of the venue that some of us have more rudely moaned about.
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Post by CG on the loose on May 26, 2016 10:00:08 GMT
Well the comments on this thread were enough to make me book - I'm a relative newbie to the Globe and not much of a Shakespeare aficionado, but really looking forward to it. Couldn't quite resist the lure (and seating options) of the midnight show on 26 August - silverlining, there maybe less flyovers at that time too!
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Post by cirque on May 26, 2016 11:27:46 GMT
This summer at the Globe seems to be shaping up for great excitement and looking at Wonder Noir season across the winter no let up in a stream of lively and provoking ideas.I think if Shakespeare was with us today he would use all the techniques and possibilities available to him in creating his popular and all embracing worlds for audiences.I have no problem with mics as used in Dream and when the audience almost danced out into the Bankside night it was joyous. Experiments,new approaches ....responses to existing texts and who knows ahead an OP production .....Globe continues to be a crucible of exploration and experiment under Emma Rice.
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Post by partytentdown on May 26, 2016 11:31:05 GMT
This summer at the Globe seems to be shaping up for great excitement and looking at Wonder Noir season across the winter no let up in a stream of lively and provoking ideas.I think if Shakespeare was with us today he would use all the techniques and possibilities available to him in creating his popular and all embracing worlds for audiences.I have no problem with mics as used in Dream and when the audience almost danced out into the Bankside night it was joyous. Experiments,new approaches ....responses to existing texts and who knows ahead an OP production .....Globe continues to be a crucible of exploration and experiment under Emma Rice. Hi Emma
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Post by horton on Jun 1, 2016 8:46:07 GMT
I'm sure the theatre professionals who work at the Globe realize it is a theatre, not a museum. Some people- possibly of a certain generation, political persuasion or narrow artistic view- have decided the Globe has to be a certain way; well **** 'em!
There have been thousands of traditional OP performances across the years, and I'm sure there will be again, and many will be enjoyable: Rylance in 'Twelfth Night' is one of the Shakespearean highlights of my life; but surely there is space for some alternative visions, too?
OK, not every production needs to be "an introduction to..." but this production is so much more than Shakespeare for Kidz! From the hypnotic and evocative music to the luscious exotic setting and costumes, this interpretation sets out a very clear vision of the play's sexual anarchy and dalliance with hallucination. Theseus opens the play by boasting that he tamed Hippolyta with his "sword" which very nearly "did her harm" so it's pretty clear that Shakespeare himself was using a dash of the old sauce to please his crowd. Sadly, nowadays probably thanks to Britten's fairies skipping around the woods, we often imagine that the play was written as the primary school's bookend to the Christmas Nativity: a lovely pageant of delightful, pretty imps being winsome. B*****ks! This group of actors absolutely nail the sexual free-for-all the writing conjures. (My personal favourite moment was when Puck joined in Oberon's mounting of the sleeping Demetrius with a "well if I can get away with it" expression).
There are bold alterations to the text- some as gags- and some to widen the play's scope further: personally, I was delighted at the creation of Helenus- but if anything, I think Demetrius' struggle to accept his true sexuality could have been explored a little further. Sure, Helenus' camp is funny, but again I think his rivalry with a female could have been mined for just a little more emotion.
There was no doubt 99% of last night's audience was up for a party and I rejoice at that. Emma Rice has opened her account with a bold, coherent, entertaining romp, very much playing to her strengths.
I hope she manages to strike a balance, though, and recognizes all the potential of this theatre space and accommodates the more traditional alongside the experimental. That way we have a win-win.
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Post by Nicholas on Jun 2, 2016 3:19:22 GMT
Not to be a nit-picker but is it bestiality if only the head is beast-ly? I don’t think the word for sex with an animal head is 'bestial'. I think the word for sex with an animal head is 'Prime Ministerial'.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2016 15:48:39 GMT
OK. Beg, steal or borrow a ticket for this. It's absolutely glorious. Wonderfully funny and two moments near the end that gave me goosebumps and brought a tear to my glass eye.
The cast are uniformily excellent but special mention to Ankara Ball as Helenus, Lucy Thackeray as Quinces, Ewan Wardrop as quite possibly the best Bottom I've seen since Kit-off Harington and the incandescent Meow Meow who simply has to be one of the sexiest, vampiest, delicious creatures to walk the earth. Her chemistry with Zubin Varla is a thing of wonder, their end duet is heartstoppingly gorgeous.
It flags a touch in the second half but it doesn't matter. The whole thing leaves you with a tingle and a gigantic smile and if you haven't fallen in love with at least one of the four romantic leads or Meow Meow you have no heart.
If this is the shape of things to come at the Globe under Emma Rice then sign me up!
Oh and one of the best "switch off your phones/fire exit" announcements I've ever seen. Like, ever!
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Post by barelyathletic on Jul 22, 2016 15:42:06 GMT
Just managed to grab what seemed to be the last two returns in the world, for next Thursday. £5 bargains in the Yard. Ouch! my back, but who cares. Inordinately excited considering I hated Dromgoole's version and have seen the Dream so many times. Unfortunately not seeing Meow Meow, who I love having helped her bodysurf over the audience at Soho several years ago, but I'm sure it will be marvelous. And it even looks like the sun will shine. Happy, happy, happy chappy.
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Post by Jan on Jul 23, 2016 6:30:33 GMT
I'm sure the theatre professionals who work at the Globe realize it is a theatre, not a museum. Some people- possibly of a certain generation, political persuasion or narrow artistic view- have decided the Globe has to be a certain way; well **** 'em! Political persuasion ? Certain generation ? What are you on about ? Upset about Brexit are you ? Just because you like something doesn't mean you have to insult people who don't. I notice you don't throw social class into the mix, the Emma Rice (49) shows I've seen were achingly middle-class with an audience to match. Nothing wrong with that.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Sept 12, 2016 6:49:42 GMT
I am currently watching the stream on iplayer and there are two things that strike me.
Firstly the coarseness of the acting is bordering on the crass. I don't demand perfect diction and RP accents for Shakespeare - but I do expect a basic understanding of the text and how to use it. Too few in this cast are demonstrating that. Some will claim that this is to make it more relevant and easily understood. Piffle. The key to understanding Shakespeare is for the cast to know exactly what they are saying - that way the audience will follow clearly. Dumbing it down is not the way to go - and too much of this acting is dumbed down.
The other thing that seems very clear is that Rice doesn't trust the text. Too often the biggest audience reactions are coming from stuff interpolated into the original - and that shows to me that she doesn't know how to exploit Shakespeare's own words to engage an audience.
I don't care about Helena becoming Helenus - doesn't add anything to the play but it doesn't really take too much away. The use of amplification for voices is to be regretted. The over-reliance on lighting is similarly disappointing. But these are nothing compared to the poor acting and direction.
I am far from a purist with Shakespeare but I do value good acting and clear direction. Neither of which are present in this. It is superficial, facile and weak.
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Post by Jan on Sept 12, 2016 6:56:23 GMT
What surprised me given Rice's interviews on her approach is that this runs so LONG, that was one of her main complaints about Shakespeare, she could surely have cut this to make it closer to 2hrs than 3.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Sept 12, 2016 6:59:43 GMT
If she didn't insist on adding musical sequences, she could have kept the run time down. Mind you the last RSC Dream was a 3 hour 5 minute job as well
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Post by Jan on Sept 12, 2016 7:14:18 GMT
If she didn't insist on adding musical sequences, she could have kept the run time down. Mind you the last RSC Dream was a 3 hour 5 minute job as well No comedy should be allowed to run over 3hrs.
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