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Post by jadnoop on Sept 10, 2018 15:56:27 GMT
Wow. Berberian Sound Studio!
Hopefully they're able to capture the eerie, atmospheric and oppressive soundscape of the film. If they do it could really make a fab play. I wonder who they would bring in for Toby Jones' role. Those are pretty big shoes to fill.
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Post by jadnoop on Sept 2, 2018 19:31:37 GMT
Only looking to get tickets to the WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old so far this year. 3D and colouring for archive film makes me a little nervous, but IWM plus Peter Jackson makes me feel optimistic. Can't wait.
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Post by jadnoop on Sept 2, 2018 19:21:46 GMT
The internet seems to have amplified our opinions to the point where reviewing is practcally a binary thing. Every play is either 'the greatest thing ever' or 'so bad I'd rather crawl across broken glass than watch another second'.
The reality is that theatre, like most things in life, sit on a bell curve. In any typical year, there will be a few future classics, a few true duds, and the vast majority will sit somewhere in the middle. The argument could be made that it's 'letting off' mediocrity to accept the vast majority of plays that are simply 'good' or 'fun' or 'enjoyable' without being 'fantastic'. However, I'm not sure that being overly critical is necessarily a 'better' response. Not least because most of us will, by definition be 'only' average in almost everything we do.
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Post by jadnoop on Aug 2, 2018 18:55:43 GMT
Exciting! Barbican seem somewhat inconsistent in announcing and selling tickets for shows, but fingers crossed this and Kafka On The Shore are put onto the site soon.
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Post by jadnoop on Aug 2, 2018 17:55:37 GMT
I don't really. It's just a sweeping generalisation based upon the small number people I've spoken to who voted to leave. Kind of why I said " I don't think" rather than simply stating "The majority of the people . . . " So these few people you spoke to who voted leave - you quizzed them on whether Norway was in the EEA too ? Must have been an odd conversation. ...because lord knows we wouldn't want people on an internet forum saying anything that isn't based on peer-reviewed research.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 31, 2018 12:18:52 GMT
I think you are right, Jan. since becoming a supporter I’ve never sat in the seats I’ve wanted at the Donmar. A kind of reverse loyalty is going on. But I did call the office once to get tickets for something quite sold out and they gave me two good seats. Same at the Almeida, if you phone you get better seats than on-line, including on the day booking opens. For the RSC at the Barbican you get a bigger choice of seats by turning up at the box office rather than booking on line. I suspect the NT also attempts to offload poor seats on their members. I don't know about the Donmar, but for the NT I agree that it can be frustrating when great (and cheap) seats are held off for the public booking. However, I don't think it's fair to describe this process as simply attempting to 'offload' the bad seats to members. Members pay to support the NT, but so does the general public. This imo the organisation has a duty to support greater access to the wider public, especially when they might not be in the position to pay a membership fee.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 29, 2018 18:56:50 GMT
I agree to some extent. It would have been nice to elevate one or two female characters and casting a woman would have done that I suppose. But the story is of its time when the gals were the power very much behind the throne. The idea of the three you mention, xanderl, is delicious. Interestingly, this is even reflected in the programme. In the family tree page, the company members have birth and death dates listed, but the wives have their marriage/divorce dates.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 29, 2018 17:57:44 GMT
Hmm. For me, this was good, but not without its flaws.
I found that, unlike a few recent plays, the 3+ hour runtime really dragged in moments, especially towards the end. I think this was down to the fact that, while apparently about Lehman Brothers the company, the play was really interested in Lehman brothers the family.
This family-focus meant that the play only glanced on some points (e.g. What it meant to be funding the cotton plantations wasn't dealt with much outside of the mechanics). Similarly, the play reached a natural climax at the end of the 'Lehman family' portion of the story (and some audience members clapped at this point). After that, as the play moved towards the 2008 financial crash, and end of the company, it actually got less interesting, ending on a bit of a whimper, rather than the exhilaration of the surreal (if overlong) dance number marking a Lehman family member's death.
It took a while to get used to the audiobook approach to the acting, as well as just having 3 actors. Ultimately though, I thought this style generally worked well, and meshed nicely with the live piano accompaniment. A moment when the pianist became crossed the boundary into the story was inspired. The acting was largely good, but IMO there were a couple of issues; (a) a key moment near the end with Adam Godley giving a speech about the digital age in sunglasses just screamed 'Agent Smith chewing the scenery in The Matrix', especially with the scrolling numbers digital backdrop. (b) a bigger problem was that, while it was exciting to see 3 great actors taking on a variety of roles, all of the non-male roles got the audience laughing. I don't know if this was intended, but it was a shame that even 'straight' female parts had the audience chuckling.
All in all, a solid four stars. Good, and I am glad to have seen it, but given the talent I was hoping for something more.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 26, 2018 13:07:33 GMT
Curb Your Enthusiasm is witty and incisive compared to this play In another thread there was a discussion about how it can be difficult to gauge how one's taste compare with other commenters on messageboards like TB. I suspect that this is statement, about such an iconic and polarising show, means that most readers will immediately be able to gauge how your taste in comedy sits with theirs. For me, I've not seen Home, I'm Darling yet, but Curb is fantastic.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 23, 2018 8:24:39 GMT
Oh right I must have been mistaken. Just that the NT website says from 24th July. I know it has had a run outside of London but I was referring to the London run. And as for the times reviews I seldom agree with them as they alsways give shows I like 2 stars so on the basis they have given this 5 stars probably means I won't like it 😁 Yes, you're right. My mistake. There's a press night on 31st July - although with the show being sold out you wonder why they need one... Just in case anyone is coming to this thread late; currently the shows aren't sold out. Every date is showing as limited availability with that simple one word promo code that mentioned on the previous page.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 22, 2018 11:34:20 GMT
Reminded me of the films of Roy Andersson crossed with a panto. Uh oh. I was all set on giving this a miss given the critical panning it has had, but this single line has piqued a little interest in me...
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 18, 2018 12:31:08 GMT
I only post to any great degree on things that I loved or hated. The reality is that that's the nature of the internet in general. A platform that's built around getting as many people to like your comment as quickly as possible (like Twitter) inevitably pushes content creators towards extreme opinions and short/snappy dialogue. Like newspaper headlines but without any actual main text which might include the nuances. Messageboards like this one obviously don't push the 'low word count' as strongly as twitter, but IMO there's still a tendency towards shorter and more polarising opinions. I find most comments on this board to be of no use to me because we are too different. IMO this is down to the wide and scattered nature of the users. With a traditional reviewer, they're consistently writing their opinions on a whole range of theatre. This means that over a period of time you get to know whose opinions line up with your own, and consequently whose reviews you 'trust'. On this messageboard, the fact that commenters & comments are more scattered means that it's less straight forward to get a decent understanding of each persons tastes - outside of those people who stick out to you. There probably are TB users whose viewpoints would line up well with yours, you just haven't found them yet.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 17, 2018 14:10:05 GMT
The 'NT Talks' podcast have now released the interview with Brandon Jacobs Jenkins that happened a few weeks ago. I don't know if it's the entire thing (episode is only 20mins long) and it's fairly lightweight and focuses more on the theatrical side of things than the social commentary but it's somewhat interesting.
It's a shame that these podcasts aren't released in a more consistent manner. I don't think the Annie Baker interview during John has been released yet.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 17, 2018 9:33:58 GMT
I... feel like we've explained over and over and over again how actively casting people who aren't white cis men is about redressing centuries of imbalance in favour of presenting the white cis man as default and everyone else as other, so yes, it's a double standard, but a perfectly reasonable one rather than rank hypocrisy. Maybe people disagree, but it is getting weird to continue wilfully misunderstanding it..... I didn’t say it was hypocrisy. I just said you are conceding the point it is OK to discriminate on the basis of race. I disagree and think that is a dangerous point to concede because each individual can then decide what type of discrimination is acceptable. You're equating casting biases made in individual theatrical productions with (perhaps subconscious) biases in the artform as a whole. Sure, you could say that a creator deciding to put on a play that explores racial and gender identity with women of colour is 'discriminatory' of white men. But only in as much as you could say that a director wanting a woman who is at least 30 or 40 to play Lady Capulet is discriminatory against children. The issue (in my opinion at least) isn't that decisions should never be made with thought to any factor other than 'acting ability', it's just that as a whole the artform should move towards better representation.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 17, 2018 8:54:46 GMT
I guess I put that poorly, I meant plays that have all female/male casts in a way that actually serves the plot, like in Top Girls or Glengarry Glen Ross. I've seen several of these all female Shakespeare productions (most notably the Donmar trilogy) and it always felt like it served no real purpose to me. What is the purpose of having all women of colour, other than as a marketing gimmick? But either way, the cynical promotion of the play using our current climate of divisive identity issues is a real turn off for me. Fair enough. I suppose my nervousness is that we're talking about the intentions behind the creative choices, but we're only ever able to see the final products, rather than the process.
That's not to say that I think we should blindly assume that artistic decisions aren't made for commercial reasons. So many plays deal with modern important world & social issues (american politics, public/private life, brexit, identity, etc.). Some are great, others are ham-fisted, and some use the topics as a gimmick, but it seems like it's those that deal with gender, sexuality and race that get the highest concentration of "that was clearly just done for the sake of it/virtue signalling" arguments.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 17, 2018 8:44:09 GMT
I am in favour of colour-blind casting. This is exactly the opposite of that, it is casting based on race. If you're conceding the point that that is acceptable then stop complaining about all-white casting. Come on now, you're not seriously making this argument(?!!)
You can't equate efforts to get more people of colour into acting with efforts to get more white people into the theatre, because the distinction isn't really about race, class, disability, sexuality or gender. Yes, those things are the visible labels, but the distinction is really about access, underlying biases and diversity.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 16, 2018 15:28:23 GMT
I refuse to see plays that make a huge deal of the identity politics of the cast or team as a promotional tool. It's such an obvious targeted ad towards the type of people that are most likely to go the theatre, which also happen to be kind of people who are fixated on this stuff, white middle-class Londoners. I am a "person of colour" (hate that expression) and my friends and I would never choose a play based on this. It's for people to pat themselves on the back. If it just happened to be a performance of Richard 2 that by chance had a entirely "women of colour" cast then I guess that would be difference, but as usual it's front and centre. Also is choosing a cast based on skin colour even legal? Patronising and awkward. The way that the play is promoted doesn't necessarily reflect the artistic integrity of the creative team. So even if you feel that the play is being promoted poorly (i.e. 'using' issues of race & identity to maximise ticket sales) it doesn't mean that the creatives have such a cynical view.
You say:
'If it just happened to be a performance of Richard 2 that by chance had a entirely "women of colour" cast then I guess that would be different'
but what does this even mean? Choosing to have women playing male characters from history isn't really going to happen 'by chance'. Certainly not in the current climate it's always going to be an active artistic choice that is at least partly made with a view to sexual politics.
Furthermore, while it's fairly common to get comments like "it would be fine if you had an all-X cast by chance, but don't just shoe-horn it in" I can't help but feel that those same people would never believe that an all-female cast did happen by chance. Never mind that all male films, plays etc. have been happening 'by chance' for decades.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 13, 2018 21:28:18 GMT
If it is done with care, thought and a purpose - and done well - then great. Go for it. If it is done for the sake of it, in order to promote an 'issue' - then not so great. You have to have something more than an agenda to justify radical shifts. Just because you can is not a good enough reason to my mind. A serious question: What 'purpose' could be more important than wanting to make your artform (or society in general) better and more inclusive (as they presumably are hoping to achieve)? I get that it feels frustrating when people that we respect make artistic choices that we think are bad. However, when you say "if it's done ... with a purpose" what purpose would be acceptable? The arts can't ever really be assessed objectively, and so choices like casting will always be affected by the underlying desires & biases of the creators. Artistic decisions might not have always had the focus on gender/racial equality that it has now, but other 'agendas' were in place, even if they might not have been as explicit. Furthermore, given the state of the world, making a conscious effort to ignore the 'issues' you describe is, in a way, a political statement in itself.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 6, 2018 12:21:11 GMT
Advice please. Would it be too much of a stretch to do Wed matinee of "I and you" and then Swiss Cottage tube to Victoria for "Hamilton" 7:30 evening. TFL shows only 14 minute ride but I never know if I should trust those. I've never been to this theatre and was also wondering about the seating. From their chart it looks very small. Any cautions abut views? Has anyone heard if Ms. Williams will be doing all shows? Thank you ! I can't see how long I and You is, but assuming it's around 2 hours and the matinee starts at 3, then you should be out of the Hampstead Theatre by around 5. This is more than enough time to get to Victoria, with time to grab something to eat. Swiss Cottage tube is only a few minutes walk from Hampstead Theatre, and you can change at Green Park. You will be going close to rush hour, and Green Park station is fairly big to walk between platforms, but I can't imagine the journey taking more than 30 minutes.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 6, 2018 11:07:14 GMT
Thanks so much for the quick responses.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 6, 2018 10:16:50 GMT
Wow, really easy booking this morning. I guess that the demand for tickets is far less than somewhere like the NT, but it was still surprisingly smooth. Only booked for 'The Humans' in the end. Considered 'I and You' too, but the clips online seemed a little too YA-attempts-Aaron Sorkin for me, and the reference to 'manic pixie dream girl' in a review means it's probably not for me. Should be good though, and seems like a coup to have Maisie Williams' stage debut. It'll be my first trip to the Hampstead Theatre, and I couldn't find ticketing advice on the TM or Seatplan websites. We went with the cheap seats (middle, back of the dress circle) since it seems like an intimate and well-design space from the photos, but would be grateful for any comments on visibility for those who have been.
Edit: One weird thing that I did notice was that the 'queue' started at about 9:30 on my mobile, but wasn't active until much later on desktop.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 6, 2018 10:08:10 GMT
An adaptation is the best of all possible writing jobs - someone else has done the hard work for you. So, I suppose, one could be grateful for that. Given how well regarded both the original book and film are, I suspect that in many ways the pressures are even higher adapting something like this compared with writing something from scratch.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 5, 2018 17:07:20 GMT
For anyone still hoping for tickets to this at the NT, it might be worth checking your emails. It seems that around midday they released a whole bunch of seats. When I checked a couple of mins ago every date has available seats ranging from £15-45 (row B of the pit and side seats in the circle for most days). As far as I can tell, if you go to the site as a member of public the dates are all showing as 'sold out', but the NT sent round emails with a link that means that the dates are showing as available. Presumably this went to all subscribers (or advance members?) so if you're interested then check your email/spam. Well that's annoying, I'm a supporting cast member and I didn't get an email! (spam checked!). Any chance you could share the link? Thanks Sorry, it's a personalised link rather than a general one (i.e. it's the /shows/home-im-darling address with a string of random characters after it), so I can't really put it online.
I had assumed that it was sent out to everyone, but if you haven't received it then it's possible it was a random selection or something. Apologies, but fingers crossed you manage to get tickets.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 5, 2018 15:33:02 GMT
For anyone still hoping for tickets to this at the NT, it might be worth checking your emails. It seems that around midday they released a whole bunch of seats. When I checked a couple of mins ago every date has available seats ranging from £15-45 (row B of the pit and side seats in the circle for most days).
As far as I can tell, if you go to the site as a member of public the dates are all showing as 'sold out', but the NT sent round emails with a link that means that the dates are showing as available. Presumably this went to all subscribers (or advance members?) so if you're interested then check your email/spam.
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Post by jadnoop on Jul 2, 2018 23:25:31 GMT
I haven't seen any interviews with the writer or director, so am happy to be corrected, but this was my take on the points you made: One of the things I don't really understand about this show (and someone please enlighten me) is why it was necessary at all. It follows Bouccicault's original quite closely so I wonder why a director didn't just present the original play and send it up(??) While I don't think it was necessarily 'necessary' to frame the play in the meta and comedic way it did, I think if you removed that side of things it would have been a fundamentally different play. I mean, you could ask whether most artistic choices are truly 'necessary' for pretty much any piece of art. However, in my opinion that's a separate (and less important) issue than whether or not those choices were effective, or true to what the artist(s) were trying to say. Secondly, my take on it was that the prologue scene with the playwright talking about the play was honest. Which is to say I don't think that he was simply trying to mock the original play, or laugh at Boucicault. My feeling was that the points at the beginning (that he thought the play was good, but troubling in a modern context) were earnest. Therefore, this framing was both an acknowledgement of the fact that you couldn't put the play on 'as is' without at least addressing the issues, as well as a reflection of the fact that he was interested in the issues of race, identity, and theatrical form and explicitly wanted to do a play that talked about these things. Another question I have (and I hope someone can answer) when you laugh at this show what are you laughing at? Are we laughing at Boucicault's ignorance? For me at least, it was a mixture of things; sometimes that awkward laughter that you might do when you see something shocking, outrageous or distasteful, sometimes laughing at the silliness/slapstic, sometimes laughing at a clever moment or joke, sometimes laughing in that uncomfortable, awkward way, and so on. On the whole I didn't find it as hilarious as some in the audience did, but I did feel it struck the right balance. I ask because I found it very uncomfortable, not least because when I saw it I had just been reading first hand witness accounts about the slave trade. It makes for harrowing reading and with that in my mind I couldn't find the play "hilarious" - but I am aware that I am in the minority here. My feeling (and again, I'm happy to be corrected by others), was that the discomfort was part of the point. I don't think that the humour of the play and the seriousness of the subject matter are necessarily incompatible. Also, does anyone know if there exists a farce about the Holocaust. Answers to my questions would be appreciated. I don't know about theatre, but there are certainly comedies set during the holocaust on film. Perhaps not 'farce' but Roberto Begnini's Life Is Beautiful was critically lauded on release, although admittedly it's had a backlash since. I think Robin Williams' Jakob The Liar was similar.
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