Going to the theatre

[Shaz]

Have you ever seen Cyrano de Bergerac, Mr C?

I've never seen an entirely satisfactory version, no. For some reason, Beckett aside, I have a problem connecting with French theatre.

I am starting to think my working life should be added to Ubu Roi as an extra act.

I did French A level and enjoyed the literature bit most of all, although the drama (Moliere, mainly) was damn hard going!

[DownInTheGround]

This afternoon I saw a version of '1984' at a local grammer school. It was the best version i have ever seen, it blew most profesional productions i have seen well 'out the water'. The soundtrack grew thin, basically repeating 'Idioteque' over and over. But surely 4 stars. Worth the £3 easy. I often think the passion and dedication is far more apparent in shows such as these.

[firehazard]

I did French A level and enjoyed the literature bit most of all, although the drama (Moliere, mainly) was damn hard going!

I loved doing French literature, and still have a fondness for it. German too, which left me with an undying love of Brecht and Kafka... I'll still always search out a good production of Brecht in particular. Saw a brilliant Mother Courage a few months ago.

I was talking to a very nice professor of French in the university over a few drinks recently. She was bewailing the fact that students coming up to the uni these days to read Modern Languages have often read none of the literature at all.

[Shaz]

I did French A level and enjoyed the literature bit most of all, although the drama (Moliere, mainly) was damn hard going!

I loved doing French literature, and still have a fondness for it. German too, which left me with an undying love of Brecht and Kafka... I'll still always search out a good production of Brecht in particular. Saw a brilliant Mother Courage a few months ago.

I was talking to a very nice professor of French in the university over a few drinks recently. She was bewailing the fact that students coming up to the uni these days to read Modern Languages have often read none of the literature at all.

Good grief! Half of our A level course was the literature. We read a lot of modern writers (bear in mind this was the 1980s!) -- Camus, Sartre, Duras.

I let my French slip, but am trying to get it back by reading crime fiction in French. Funny how I can always understand the sex scenes.

[firehazard]

I was talking to a very nice professor of French in the university over a few drinks recently. She was bewailing the fact that students coming up to the uni these days to read Modern Languages have often read none of the literature at all.

Good grief! Half of our A level course was the literature. We read a lot of modern writers (bear in mind this was the 1980s!) -- Camus, Sartre, Duras.

I let my French slip, but am trying to get it back by reading crime fiction in French. Funny how I can always understand the sex scenes.

I know, I found it hard to believe about the lack of literature in Language A levels, but apparently it's the case. The poor prof was somewhat despairing about it. Like you, for me it was at least half the course... and the best part of it, in my opinion. A few years earlier, but it sounds like I did mostly the same writers as you. I'd love to get my French and German back up to standard. Perhaps I should try that... crime fiction, I mean.

[Shaz]

I let my French slip, but am trying to get it back by reading crime fiction in French. Funny how I can always understand the sex scenes.

I know, I found it hard to believe about the lack of literature in Language A levels, but apparently it's the case. The poor prof was somewhat despairing about it. Like you, for me it was at least half the course... and the best part of it, in my opinion. A few years earlier, but it sounds like I did mostly the same writers as you. I'd love to get my French and German back up to standard. Perhaps I should try that... crime fiction, I mean.

It seems to be helping, as I'm using the dictionary less. A friend who speaks three language fluently suggested it, the rationale being that it's something you'd read anyway and therefore it's not a chore.

I also read French newspapers and magazines, which helps.

[CM]

LEAR IAN MCKELLEN RSC STRATFORD

...just had the wind taken from my sails, two old ladies in the caff this morning judged last nights show 'ok, bit disappointing, bit of a rant ...'

I feel like i was at a different play i found it intensely emotional, deeply disturbing bordering on shocking, and rivetting from first line to last.

I always know the good ones because it always takes 1/2 hour to come back down to earth after .. or in this case Up from hell.



Was interesting to read S based it on an old play 'Leir', which had a fairytale ending, the King restored to the throne, daughters married off etc. Shakespeare took this play, rewrote it and killed them all. That's why I love his work. He knows there's no need for the hollywood ending.

[philipchevron]

The Merchant Of Venice Swan Theatre, Stratford

The skittles are somewhat laboriously set up in the first part but when they are pacily knocked down after the intermission, this actually pays off very well. The man beside me was snooty about the accents of the actors of the visiting New York company Theatre For A New Audience, but in fact there appears to be some evidence that 16th Century native English is quite close in inflection to present-day US speech and anyway, who gives a monkey's? With Shakespeare you either speak the verse well or you find another job. Here it is, for the most part, spoken very well, not least by F. Murray Abraham as the usurer. All contemporary Shylocks will inevitably be compared with Henry Goodman's extraordinarily translucent performance at the Cottesloe a few years back, and if Abraham is not quite in that league, well, neither is anyone else. But when Abraham responds to his sentencing to Christianity (Antonio simultaneously rips the yarmulke from Shylock's head) by convulsing into foetal distress under the table which has held his weighing scales throughout the trial scene, all the while protecting his bared scalp as though the yarmulke was itself a pound of flesh ripped from his head, his horror and humiliation are palpable.

[philipchevron]

LEAR IAN MCKELLEN RSC STRATFORD

...just had the wind taken from my sails, two old ladies in the caff this morning judged last nights show 'ok, bit disappointing, bit of a rant ...'

I feel like i was at a different play i found it intensely emotional, deeply disturbing bordering on shocking, and rivetting from first line to last.

Agree, best King Lear I've ever seen. When Trevor Nunn does get it right, there's no one better. And Ian McKellen is a Lear for our age. He doesn't so much deliver an acting performance or even (yawn) climb the actor's Everest, so much as conduct an expedition to his soul. And what he finds there is something greater than God, greater even than Love. Kindness.

Earlier today, I watched the penultimate performance in the Art Deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it gets gutted and given a new interior identical to the temporary Courtyard Theatre where Lear is running. Inevitably, it was interrupted by technical problems as the ghosts of thesps past (possibly) created mischief.

William Houston makes an excellent Coriolanus - he's at his best in these scenery-chewing roles, though I saw Ralph Fiennes gave an effective and quiet rendition a few years ago. Janet Suzman and Timothy West support well.

[Shaz]

LEAR IAN MCKELLEN RSC STRATFORD

...just had the wind taken from my sails, two old ladies in the caff this morning judged last nights show 'ok, bit disappointing, bit of a rant ...'

I feel like i was at a different play i found it intensely emotional, deeply disturbing bordering on shocking, and rivetting from first line to last.

Agree, best King Lear I've ever seen. When Trevor Nunn does get it right, there's no one better. And Ian McKellen is a Lear for our age. He doesn't so much deliver an acting performance or even (yawn) climb the actor's Everest, so much as conduct an expedition to his soul. And what he finds there is something greater than God, greater even than Love. Kindness.

Earlier today, I watched the penultimate performance in the Art Deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it gets gutted and given a new interior identical to the temporary Courtyard Theatre where Lear is running. Inevitably, it was interrupted by technical problems as the ghosts of thesps past (possibly) created mischief.

William Houston makes an excellent Coriolanus - he's at his best in these scenery-chewing roles, though I saw Ralph Fiennes gave an effective and quiet rendition a few years ago. Janet Suzman and Timothy West support well.

I'll kind of miss the old layout, lousy acoustics notwithstanding. Locals used to call it the canning factory.

Haven't seen Coriolanus for years -- last performance I saw was Alan Howard in the title role. If you're going to go OTT, go OTT in style, I always say.

[philipchevron]

LEAR IAN MCKELLEN RSC STRATFORD

...just had the wind taken from my sails, two old ladies in the caff this morning judged last nights show 'ok, bit disappointing, bit of a rant ...'

I feel like i was at a different play i found it intensely emotional, deeply disturbing bordering on shocking, and rivetting from first line to last.

Agree, best King Lear I've ever seen. When Trevor Nunn does get it right, there's no one better. And Ian McKellen is a Lear for our age. He doesn't so much deliver an acting performance or even (yawn) climb the actor's Everest, so much as conduct an expedition to his soul. And what he finds there is something greater than God, greater even than Love. Kindness.

Earlier today, I watched the penultimate performance in the Art Deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it gets gutted and given a new interior identical to the temporary Courtyard Theatre where Lear is running. Inevitably, it was interrupted by technical problems as the ghosts of thesps past (possibly) created mischief.

William Houston makes an excellent Coriolanus - he's at his best in these scenery-chewing roles, though I saw Ralph Fiennes gave an effective and quiet rendition a few years ago. Janet Suzman and Timothy West support well.

I'll kind of miss the old layout, lousy acoustics notwithstanding. Locals used to call it the canning factory.

Haven't seen Coriolanus for years -- last performance I saw was Alan Howard in the title role. If you're going to go OTT, go OTT in style, I always say.

Actually, the "lousy acoustics" thing is a bit of a canard, as both Janet Suzman and Timothy West ably demonstrated today by speaking very softly but projecting right across the house. A whole generation of otherwise very good actors has grown up with the knowledge that a microphone will always save them if necessary. Projection has slipped down the syllabus in drama schools.

[Shaz]

Earlier today, I watched the penultimate performance in the Art Deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it gets gutted and given a new interior identical to the temporary Courtyard Theatre where Lear is running. Inevitably, it was interrupted by technical problems as the ghosts of thesps past (possibly) created mischief.

William Houston makes an excellent Coriolanus - he's at his best in these scenery-chewing roles, though I saw Ralph Fiennes gave an effective and quiet rendition a few years ago. Janet Suzman and Timothy West support well.

I'll kind of miss the old layout, lousy acoustics notwithstanding. Locals used to call it the canning factory.

Haven't seen Coriolanus for years -- last performance I saw was Alan Howard in the title role. If you're going to go OTT, go OTT in style, I always say.

Actually, the "lousy acoustics" thing is a bit of a canard, as both Janet Suzman and Timothy West ably demonstrated today by speaking very softly but projecting right across the house. A whole generation of otherwise very good actors has grown up with the knowledge that a microphone will always save them if necessary. Projection has slipped down the syllabus in drama schools.[/quote]

Which is immensely depressing. The age of the actor does seem to tally with how clearly you can hear them. I've seen some plays at the RST with younger or less experienced actors in who sounded like they were training to be announcers at Birmingham New St station.

[CM]

The Merchant Of Venice Swan Theatre, Stratford

The skittles are somewhat laboriously set up in the first part but when they are pacily knocked down after the intermission, this actually pays off very well. The man beside me was snooty ......... all the while protecting his bared scalp as though the yarmulke was itself a pound of flesh ripped from his head, his horror and humiliation are palpable.

If you ever hang up the guitar, Mr Chevron, any broadsheet newspaper would snap you as chief theatre critic. (but don't hang up the guitar!)

Like Lear, Merchant Of Venice overwhelmed me. I've seen it only once before, in a church hall in Hackney (good)... Like your snooty neighbour, Antonio's cultured NY tones jarred a little when he took the stage and I wondered if the yanks might make a bollocks of it. I was an idiot. They were superb, the play by turns hilarious and chilling. I loved how new gadgets -mobile phone reception etc- stuck brand new humour into scenes four centuries old. The face of the woman beside me was streaming with tears when lights came up, the best production she'd seen she'd said (number 6). It's a play that jerks your emotions every which way and I thought the two halves were well married. I imagine it can be difficult..

I loved Lear.

The actors playing Fool, Lear, Goneril and Kent all outstanding, those devilish details that make all the difference and McKellen at the start half-reading from cue cards (explaining the stiffness of Lear's speech) and tossing them aside, the Fool still hanging by the neck at half time as the audience ate ice cream in his shadow etc etc so much to enage with and enjoy.

Coriolanus also very good but somehow it didn't reach me. I feel bad about this as there was nothing wrong with it. I think the Globe's production from last summer is branded in my memory, so anything since (also saw a fringe version last month) feels like an inferior remake, probably completely unfairly.

This afternoon I'm off to Kennington for Timon Of Athens

[philipchevron]

The Merchant Of Venice Swan Theatre, Stratford

The skittles are somewhat laboriously set up in the first part but when they are pacily knocked down after the intermission, this actually pays off very well. The man beside me was snooty ......... all the while protecting his bared scalp as though the yarmulke was itself a pound of flesh ripped from his head, his horror and humiliation are palpable.

If you ever hang up the guitar, Mr Chevron, any broadsheet newspaper would snap you as chief theatre critic. (but don't hang up the guitar!)

Like Lear, Merchant Of Venice overwhelmed me. I've seen it only once before, in a church hall in Hackney (good)... Like your snooty neighbour, Antonio's cultured NY tones jarred a little when he took the stage and I wondered if the yanks might make a bollocks of it. I was an idiot. They were superb, the play by turns hilarious and chilling. I loved how new gadgets -mobile phone reception etc- stuck brand new humour into scenes four centuries old. The face of the woman beside me was streaming with tears when lights came up, the best production she'd seen she'd said (number 6). It's a play that jerks your emotions every which way and I thought the two halves were well married. I imagine it can be difficult..

I loved Lear.

The actors playing Fool, Lear, Goneril and Kent all outstanding, those devilish details that make all the difference and McKellen at the start half-reading from cue cards (explaining the stiffness of Lear's speech) and tossing them aside, the Fool still hanging by the neck at half time as the audience ate ice cream in his shadow etc etc so much to enage with and enjoy.

Coriolanus also very good but somehow it didn't reach me. I feel bad about this as there was nothing wrong with it. I think the Globe's production from last summer is branded in my memory, so anything since (also saw a fringe version last month) feels like an inferior remake, probably completely unfairly.

This afternoon I'm off to Kennington for Timon Of Athens

All productions of Timon should be relished. You never know when there'll be another one. Dominic Dromgoole has so far been heedless of my pleas to give us a Globe version.

On the Fool in Lear. You can usually tell if the second part is going to be any good by what happens to the Fool in the first. Apparently, there are no stage directions for the Fool after he last speaks - he just sorta disappears and he is never spoken of or to again. Lesser directors just consider this an excellent opportunity to do some double-up casting. In a good Lear, the Fool will always be assassinated or kill himself to explain this absence. It matters greatly what happens to the Fool, for he is N'uncle's (Lear's) only wise counsel until he meets Edgar/Mad Tom. The absence of the Fool in Lear's life threatens to leave him completely rudderless.

[Shaz]

All productions of Timon should be relished. You never know when there'll be another one. Dominic Dromgoole has so far been heedless of my pleas to give us a Globe version.

Humph! Most inconsiderate of him. I've seen it staged once, some years ago, at the Other Place in Stratford with Richard Pasco in the title role.

I think I've now seen all the infrequently staged Shakespeare plays, including Titus Andronicus, Pericles and Henry VIII.