(no subject)
Next week and the week after I have two runs of three nights of theatre in a row... which is very exciting and wonderful but also slightly exhausting just to think about. The first one can be blamed on me being incapable of turning down free theatre and the second can be, well blamed isn't the right word At All but explained by the fact that Amanda Holden is leaving Shrek very very soon.
So that's going to be lots of fun and anyone want to place a bet that I'll manage to review all of September's theatre before the end of the year... well yes. I'll do my best?
Speaking of which- last Monday I went to Stratford-upon-Avon with a university friend and first we went for a little explore of the new theatre which was rather wonderful. The foyer/corridor with the new shop is rather nice and brings the whole building together and the restaurant looks fab though one for a treat perhaps... I particularly adored the three chairs floating on the wall showing where the back row of the old theatre was! We also went up the shiny new tower and saw for MILES. It's well worth doing if you're in the area.
Of course we didn't actually go to the new theatre that evening we went to the Swan instead but as I'd never been in the Swan even before the renovation it was still pretty exciting for me :D
Cardenio- RSC The Swan
So this is the "lost" Shakespeare play... it was odd because the plot felt quite Shakespearian in places but the text? Not so much. Some of it felt MUCH more modern and I'm not sure it was quite up to Shakespeare at his best but then really it's been stitched together from a lot of sources so that's not desperately surprising.
It's quite an unpleasant play in some ways. Cardenion struck me as a bit of a twit (well overly trusting) knowing that his "friend" the Duke's son Fernando was a bit of a bastard he introduced him to his true love Luscinda and then was surprised when Fernando tried to cut him out?
And when I say a bit of a bastard Fernando starts out by trying to seduce Dorotea and then "marries" her to make her give in when it's obviously a lie and then stands there and in a soliloquy wonders if it was rape.
At which point a woman in the audience said YES very loudly!
So much as Fernando is a deeply unpleasant character I have to say i thought Alex Hassell was BRILLIANT because he took that and acknowledged it and carried on with his soliloquy and actually a lot of the time he used audience reactions to bounce off which I suspect is what comes of acting in the Globe and for The Factory- knowing how to deal with noisy and opinionated audiences! I mean I loved him before but he really impressed me because he didn't really apologise for his character but managed to make him, IDK, understandable? A spoilt kid who really didn't care about anyone around him at all and was able to excuse his own behaviour right up until being faced with Dorotea at the end (though as with many of these problem plays I fear I don't see a happily ever after because how could it last?)
The whole cast was good though, lots of half familiar faces *g Luscinda was played by Lucy Briggs-Owen and she was really interesting because she made all her lines sound like something out of a modern play which isn't a criticism just an comment. She was wonderfully spiky and determined not to marry Fernando despite being entirely trapped.
Dorotea was similarly wonderful, Pippa Nixon did a good job of showing how determined she was not to give in to Fernando but that she was still attracted to him so her giving in & being deceived was believable. And she was rather heartbreaking when following Fernando dressed as a shepherd boy.
Cardenio was played by Oliver Rix and... well it's just an annoying character. A bit useless, another one of these "heroes" who fails to trust his heroine and then runs mad. IDEK I don't like those characters. His father however, played by Christopher Godwin, was utterly fantastic ranting and raving and thumping things with his stick.
I think this was another of those love the production, not so fond of the play times.
Then I drove home... which made for a very VERY late night but it turns out is doable if I want to in future. Mind you I did have a very weird experience when I stopped at a Service Station for a leg stretch & a snack and slowly it dawned on me that every single person in there was a man! There were a couple of minibuses that were all guys and then a Taxi pulled up with all guys and the staff were guys and there were no families or couples etc. I wasn't scared exactly but I have to admit to being a bit unnerved at 1am to be alone & entirely surrounded by guys :-| So I bought myself a Krispy Kreme doughnut and felt much better *g*
So that's going to be lots of fun and anyone want to place a bet that I'll manage to review all of September's theatre before the end of the year... well yes. I'll do my best?
Speaking of which- last Monday I went to Stratford-upon-Avon with a university friend and first we went for a little explore of the new theatre which was rather wonderful. The foyer/corridor with the new shop is rather nice and brings the whole building together and the restaurant looks fab though one for a treat perhaps... I particularly adored the three chairs floating on the wall showing where the back row of the old theatre was! We also went up the shiny new tower and saw for MILES. It's well worth doing if you're in the area.
Of course we didn't actually go to the new theatre that evening we went to the Swan instead but as I'd never been in the Swan even before the renovation it was still pretty exciting for me :D
Cardenio- RSC The Swan
So this is the "lost" Shakespeare play... it was odd because the plot felt quite Shakespearian in places but the text? Not so much. Some of it felt MUCH more modern and I'm not sure it was quite up to Shakespeare at his best but then really it's been stitched together from a lot of sources so that's not desperately surprising.
It's quite an unpleasant play in some ways. Cardenion struck me as a bit of a twit (well overly trusting) knowing that his "friend" the Duke's son Fernando was a bit of a bastard he introduced him to his true love Luscinda and then was surprised when Fernando tried to cut him out?
And when I say a bit of a bastard Fernando starts out by trying to seduce Dorotea and then "marries" her to make her give in when it's obviously a lie and then stands there and in a soliloquy wonders if it was rape.
At which point a woman in the audience said YES very loudly!
So much as Fernando is a deeply unpleasant character I have to say i thought Alex Hassell was BRILLIANT because he took that and acknowledged it and carried on with his soliloquy and actually a lot of the time he used audience reactions to bounce off which I suspect is what comes of acting in the Globe and for The Factory- knowing how to deal with noisy and opinionated audiences! I mean I loved him before but he really impressed me because he didn't really apologise for his character but managed to make him, IDK, understandable? A spoilt kid who really didn't care about anyone around him at all and was able to excuse his own behaviour right up until being faced with Dorotea at the end (though as with many of these problem plays I fear I don't see a happily ever after because how could it last?)
The whole cast was good though, lots of half familiar faces *g Luscinda was played by Lucy Briggs-Owen and she was really interesting because she made all her lines sound like something out of a modern play which isn't a criticism just an comment. She was wonderfully spiky and determined not to marry Fernando despite being entirely trapped.
Dorotea was similarly wonderful, Pippa Nixon did a good job of showing how determined she was not to give in to Fernando but that she was still attracted to him so her giving in & being deceived was believable. And she was rather heartbreaking when following Fernando dressed as a shepherd boy.
Cardenio was played by Oliver Rix and... well it's just an annoying character. A bit useless, another one of these "heroes" who fails to trust his heroine and then runs mad. IDEK I don't like those characters. His father however, played by Christopher Godwin, was utterly fantastic ranting and raving and thumping things with his stick.
I think this was another of those love the production, not so fond of the play times.
Then I drove home... which made for a very VERY late night but it turns out is doable if I want to in future. Mind you I did have a very weird experience when I stopped at a Service Station for a leg stretch & a snack and slowly it dawned on me that every single person in there was a man! There were a couple of minibuses that were all guys and then a Taxi pulled up with all guys and the staff were guys and there were no families or couples etc. I wasn't scared exactly but I have to admit to being a bit unnerved at 1am to be alone & entirely surrounded by guys :-| So I bought myself a Krispy Kreme doughnut and felt much better *g*