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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 10:28:09 GMT
Ever since the acclaimed show An Oak Tree went completely over my head, I have studiously avoided the work of Tim Crouch. So I didn't see Adler & Gibb at the Royal Court two years ago. But I decided to be brave when I heard that there was a new, simplified, shortened and stripped-down, version being made this summer and shown at Summerhall for the entire duration of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and then toured to the Unicorn Theatre and the Lowry. I assumed that the makers must be confident that they now had something accessible to a general audience. How wrong I was! This is still elite theatre, or art theatre, impenetrable theatre. It's an example of the sort of theatre which destroys my confidence in attending theatre because it operates on a completely different level to me, and makes me doubt my ability to read all theatre.
Tim Crouch is back at the top of my list of theatre to avoid because it gives me nothing. He's just above Katie Mitchell.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 10:59:14 GMT
I saw an oak tree at the national last year and really enjoyed it. It was different ,as at each performance the character of the dad was played by a different actor or actress . It did feel fringe but I personally enjoyed it. The story was interesting and the way Crounch was able to talk to the other actor about what they were going to say was quite cool. I might check out Alder and Gibb and can see why some people might not like crouches style.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 11:46:37 GMT
An Oak Tree is pretty straightforward, a story about a hypnotist and an event in their life, told with the help of a volunteer and using theatrical illusion to highlight questions of artifice and representation. Adler & Gibb is similar but denser in its allusions and on a wider canvas, constructing a supposedly true story about an artist who never existed. Both shows also have a connection to the art world.
Yes, there is a density of ideas in the writing but Crouch is one of few writers who can make me think deeply about what I am watching, I'd place him as one of our most important contemporary playwrights (and, yes, I would suggest the same for Katie Mitchell and directors).
I love popular theatre, recently praising Lee Hall as the spiritual descendant of Godber and Cartwright, but theatre can, and should, be many things and appeal in different ways, at different times, to different people.
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Post by couldileaveyou on Sept 4, 2016 11:48:21 GMT
Oooh, I love Tim Crouch's England!!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 12:11:43 GMT
Oooh, I love Tim Crouch's England!! Written to be staged in an art gallery (another example of his use of that medium)! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 12:39:28 GMT
Has anyone seen any of Tim Crouch's solo (I think) Shakespeare shows? With titles like I Malvolio and I Peaseblossom, and I think intended for young audiences and some co-produced by the RSC? Are they like his other stuff, or is this a completely different strand of his work? Up to now, I've just avoided them like the plague because they're by him, but have I made an assumption too far? I accept his "importance" and Adler & Gibb was meticulously made and performed. But it's "important" for art-steeped people and 100% NOT for me.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 13:02:48 GMT
Different strokes, as they say. I saw I, Malvolio, it's very good and, as you say, aimed at a younger audience. You need to know the original plays to get the most out of them although they do stand alone with a little knowledge that you can get from a bit of googling. In the same way I don't think you need to know art to appreciate his 'adult' plays, doing so just adds another layer (as in the title of 'An Oak Tree').
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 14:03:15 GMT
Hmm. I think you do need to know art to appreciate his theatre, and also that you need to have studied performance theory. I don't and haven't, and for me that blocks off his work to out of bounds and inaccessible. Same with Katie Mitchell. I contrast them with Neil Bartlett and Anthony Neilson who both also make work about form but almost always make it generally accessible in other ways. Tim Crouch and Katie Mitchell seem to be highly skilled in shutting down and limiting their work so that it can only be appreciated with an art and performance theory degree, and is alienatingly obscure if experienced from any other perspective. I shall not risk the Shakespearean "I" shows!
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Post by jek on Sept 4, 2016 15:25:08 GMT
We saw this last week at the Unicorn. While there were some interesting ideas in it we found it neither as funny or clever as lots of people sitting around us did. A bit too exclusive, with too many in jokes. I got the impression that lots of people there were theatre professionals - in fact a number of the cast of a hugely enjoyable musical were in the audience (we weren't sitting near them though and so I don't know how much they enjoyed it). My teen daughter and I discussed it quite a bit on the tube home and came to the conclusion that it wasn't something we'd go to again - or seek out work by the same team. Not a waste of time seeing it but given the cost of the tickets (I booked before there were cheap offers) we felt a bit cheated.
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Post by foxa on Sept 4, 2016 16:04:34 GMT
I saw this at the Royal Court and really didn't like it. It became, in our house, (along with 'Song from Far Away') a touchstone for dull, pretentious theatre, as in 'It was bad, but not 'Adler and Gibb' bad.' But having said that, people whose opinions I respect liked both of those plays, so it may be my boredom threshold isn't that high or I'm not discerning enough. But yeah, it would take a lot to entice me back.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 17:29:52 GMT
And I think it's misleading of theatres to present Adler & Gibb and An Oak Tree as "plays". They are pieces of theatre and NOT what most people understand as a play.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2016 18:59:50 GMT
What is a 'play'?
Beyond the strange idea that you need to know performance theory to understand his plays. I do think it helps to have a European sensibility as regards theatre, as with Mitchell.
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Post by DuchessConstance on Sept 4, 2016 22:51:21 GMT
I really enjoyed it, and it was one of the plays that opened my mind to the possibilities of experimental theatre, which I'd always sort of dismissed as being probably a bit wanky and boring.
I don't really know anything about art or art history but I have an appreciation for it.
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