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I am, once again, WAY behind on theatre reviews. This time it's partly because they were so close together but also that I'm ridiculously sad my Globe to Globe adventures are coming to an end :-( I've only got two left and one of those is in English!
I'd better attempt at least some thoughts about what I've seen though.
Romeo & Juliet- Grupo Galpão (Brazilian Portuguese) @ The Globe
This was a carnival version of Romeo & Juliet full of stilt-walkers and musicians and large fake breasts... (well okay only the nurse had those). It also involved having a large estate car on the stage (all painted with flowers and with a stage on the top) which I STILL don't see how they got onto the Globe stage because it definitely looked bigger than their lift!
This is pretty much the first play where I could understand any of the language and there were certain speeches that I could more or less follow which was nice but again it wasn't erally necessary.
I thought Mercutio was brilliant- his death scene was one of the surprisingly serious moments and I loved his Queen Mab speech. Tybalt was a lot less sexy than he often is in prodcutions :-P His "Prince of Cats" title mostly seemed to be due to the fact that he actually hissed like a cat quite a lot!
Juliet and her mother both wore ballet shoes and danced little bits. Mostly I liked it best when Juliet and the nurse were on stage, they worked really well together, but all the love scenes between Romeo & Juliet were well done too.
We also had Shakespeare on stage acting as a sort of narrator and also helping at odd moments with props etc.
It was really fun, which might be an odd thing to say and Romeo & Juliet I guess, and I think they got the balance right between the carnival side and the sadder side but I suspect it's the stilts and the ridiculous dummies used as ladies during the ball etc. that I'll remember.
For Romeo & Juliet the weather was still a little cold but then our lovely heatwave started and the Globe in sunshine, when it's warm enough to be in a t-shirt all evening, is such a lovely thing ♥ Even if being on your own makes it much harder/impossible to get an interval Pimms *g*
Love's Labour's Lost- Deafinitely Theatre (British Sign Language) @ The Globe
This was PERFECT. I've seen LLL twice before (at the Globe itself and then David Tennant's RSC version) but I think this one might actually have been my favourite.
I believe the translation of this play was done at least partly by the actors themselves, which makes a sort of sense because with BSL the "lines" are very much built into the whole physical performance. They had a band playing music to set the scene but what fascinated me was how clear it was that Armado was signing in a different... whatever the BSL equivalent of an accent is! And it became more obvious when Boyet had to read Armado's letter because suddenly his whole style changed too.
I think maybe Armado was my favourite <3 He signed the Spring & Winter poem at the end (and then it sort of turned into a jig because the others were all signing variants of it and the movement was very much like a dance)
That said they were all good. The King was sort of adorable when he was declaring his love, the Princess was wonderful and feisty, Berowne & Rosaline had LOTS of fun insulting each other (and whatever else I may or may not have understood it turns out rude jokes are understandable in any language *g*)
I still find the end of LLL very strange- the whole Nine Worthies stuff makes me uncomfortable because the lords are so nasty about it and then that sudden tone change when the messanger comes... still they played it all very well and it's not their fault the play is weird *g*
I'd happily watch another play entirely/partly in BSL.
An interesting thing about the Globe to Globe audiences has been spotting how many people are "normal" Globe audience, how many are Globe to Globe regulars and how many are there for that specific language. With the BSL it was very obvious because you can tell someone's signing even if they're in the balcony when you can't hear what language they're talking. Of course it also meant there were conversations happening between the Yard and the two Galleries in the interval which can't happen normally but in BSL, with good enough eyesight, they can!
The audience for the Taming of the Shrew had a very large number of Pakastani people/Urdu speakers too- particularly obvious as the play started with the national anthem of Pakistan and most of the audience stood automatically and a large-ish number knew the words.
Taming of the Shrew- Theatre Wallay - KASHF (Urdu) @ The Globe
So The Taming of the Shrew is one of the "problem plays" and it mostly makes me want to stab things when I read it so I was really interested to see what this production did with the play coming from a different cultural perspective.
I loved the costume and the bollywood style dance they used and they really played up the comedy which worked brilliantly (the two suitors to Bian (Bianca) were particularly hilarious) and I also really liked the relationship between Bian and Karin (Katherina)
As to the central "problem" of Rustam (Petruchio)'s taming of Karin... their first meeting was fun because Karin clearly fancied him and their sparring seemed fairly equal and then as they went on Karin physically attacked Rustam several times but I have to admit that the look of helpless defeat on her face as she was betrothed and then married more or less without her consent really started to get me down and then the whole starving thing... I hate it and I STILL don't know whether Shakespeare approved of it or not. BUT one thing that I did like was that despite Karin giving in a thanking him for ehr food the moment that actually seemed to be more important was Rustam seeing how upset she was and handing her his shawl to keep her warm.
After that, on the journey back, all of the sun/moon stuff and the old man they tease seemed to really amuse Karin so when she "played along" with it I didn't mind it because she seemed to be enjoying herself so much and then at the end as much as she did come when called the whole of that potentially awful speech worked mostly because he whispered in her ear before she started and it was definitely played as if he told her about the wager.
And even though I don't speak Urdu it was perfectly clear when she got to that bit about putting her hands underneath her husband's feet and Rustam stopped her so quickly I actually believed that these two might last and she hadn't so much been tamed as much as she'd been shown that someone actually cared and they'd come to understand each other.
So pretty much an all round win!
The two leads were incredible, much as I loved the rest of the cast too, and my only criticism was that they had a "narrator" character who was pretty much constantly onstage reacting to the action and mimicing other characters and after about 10 minutes I very much wanted to shake her... she had good moments but generally I enjoyed the play much more in the brief scenes she was offstage/sitting still!
I have been SO lucky with the plays I picked, here's hoping my luck holds out for Much Ado About Nothing in French!
I'm still slightly sad I'm not seeing the Hebrew Merchant of Venice tonight or tomorrow but I thought it would be too much and rumour has it the audience has been told to come an hour early for security searches as there have been various threats :-| Whatever anyone's thoughts & feelings on Israel/Palestine I hope everyone stays safe tonight.
I'd better attempt at least some thoughts about what I've seen though.
Romeo & Juliet- Grupo Galpão (Brazilian Portuguese) @ The Globe
This was a carnival version of Romeo & Juliet full of stilt-walkers and musicians and large fake breasts... (well okay only the nurse had those). It also involved having a large estate car on the stage (all painted with flowers and with a stage on the top) which I STILL don't see how they got onto the Globe stage because it definitely looked bigger than their lift!
This is pretty much the first play where I could understand any of the language and there were certain speeches that I could more or less follow which was nice but again it wasn't erally necessary.
I thought Mercutio was brilliant- his death scene was one of the surprisingly serious moments and I loved his Queen Mab speech. Tybalt was a lot less sexy than he often is in prodcutions :-P His "Prince of Cats" title mostly seemed to be due to the fact that he actually hissed like a cat quite a lot!
Juliet and her mother both wore ballet shoes and danced little bits. Mostly I liked it best when Juliet and the nurse were on stage, they worked really well together, but all the love scenes between Romeo & Juliet were well done too.
We also had Shakespeare on stage acting as a sort of narrator and also helping at odd moments with props etc.
It was really fun, which might be an odd thing to say and Romeo & Juliet I guess, and I think they got the balance right between the carnival side and the sadder side but I suspect it's the stilts and the ridiculous dummies used as ladies during the ball etc. that I'll remember.
For Romeo & Juliet the weather was still a little cold but then our lovely heatwave started and the Globe in sunshine, when it's warm enough to be in a t-shirt all evening, is such a lovely thing ♥ Even if being on your own makes it much harder/impossible to get an interval Pimms *g*
Love's Labour's Lost- Deafinitely Theatre (British Sign Language) @ The Globe
This was PERFECT. I've seen LLL twice before (at the Globe itself and then David Tennant's RSC version) but I think this one might actually have been my favourite.
I believe the translation of this play was done at least partly by the actors themselves, which makes a sort of sense because with BSL the "lines" are very much built into the whole physical performance. They had a band playing music to set the scene but what fascinated me was how clear it was that Armado was signing in a different... whatever the BSL equivalent of an accent is! And it became more obvious when Boyet had to read Armado's letter because suddenly his whole style changed too.
I think maybe Armado was my favourite <3 He signed the Spring & Winter poem at the end (and then it sort of turned into a jig because the others were all signing variants of it and the movement was very much like a dance)
That said they were all good. The King was sort of adorable when he was declaring his love, the Princess was wonderful and feisty, Berowne & Rosaline had LOTS of fun insulting each other (and whatever else I may or may not have understood it turns out rude jokes are understandable in any language *g*)
I still find the end of LLL very strange- the whole Nine Worthies stuff makes me uncomfortable because the lords are so nasty about it and then that sudden tone change when the messanger comes... still they played it all very well and it's not their fault the play is weird *g*
I'd happily watch another play entirely/partly in BSL.
An interesting thing about the Globe to Globe audiences has been spotting how many people are "normal" Globe audience, how many are Globe to Globe regulars and how many are there for that specific language. With the BSL it was very obvious because you can tell someone's signing even if they're in the balcony when you can't hear what language they're talking. Of course it also meant there were conversations happening between the Yard and the two Galleries in the interval which can't happen normally but in BSL, with good enough eyesight, they can!
The audience for the Taming of the Shrew had a very large number of Pakastani people/Urdu speakers too- particularly obvious as the play started with the national anthem of Pakistan and most of the audience stood automatically and a large-ish number knew the words.
Taming of the Shrew- Theatre Wallay - KASHF (Urdu) @ The Globe
So The Taming of the Shrew is one of the "problem plays" and it mostly makes me want to stab things when I read it so I was really interested to see what this production did with the play coming from a different cultural perspective.
I loved the costume and the bollywood style dance they used and they really played up the comedy which worked brilliantly (the two suitors to Bian (Bianca) were particularly hilarious) and I also really liked the relationship between Bian and Karin (Katherina)
As to the central "problem" of Rustam (Petruchio)'s taming of Karin... their first meeting was fun because Karin clearly fancied him and their sparring seemed fairly equal and then as they went on Karin physically attacked Rustam several times but I have to admit that the look of helpless defeat on her face as she was betrothed and then married more or less without her consent really started to get me down and then the whole starving thing... I hate it and I STILL don't know whether Shakespeare approved of it or not. BUT one thing that I did like was that despite Karin giving in a thanking him for ehr food the moment that actually seemed to be more important was Rustam seeing how upset she was and handing her his shawl to keep her warm.
After that, on the journey back, all of the sun/moon stuff and the old man they tease seemed to really amuse Karin so when she "played along" with it I didn't mind it because she seemed to be enjoying herself so much and then at the end as much as she did come when called the whole of that potentially awful speech worked mostly because he whispered in her ear before she started and it was definitely played as if he told her about the wager.
And even though I don't speak Urdu it was perfectly clear when she got to that bit about putting her hands underneath her husband's feet and Rustam stopped her so quickly I actually believed that these two might last and she hadn't so much been tamed as much as she'd been shown that someone actually cared and they'd come to understand each other.
So pretty much an all round win!
The two leads were incredible, much as I loved the rest of the cast too, and my only criticism was that they had a "narrator" character who was pretty much constantly onstage reacting to the action and mimicing other characters and after about 10 minutes I very much wanted to shake her... she had good moments but generally I enjoyed the play much more in the brief scenes she was offstage/sitting still!
I have been SO lucky with the plays I picked, here's hoping my luck holds out for Much Ado About Nothing in French!
I'm still slightly sad I'm not seeing the Hebrew Merchant of Venice tonight or tomorrow but I thought it would be too much and rumour has it the audience has been told to come an hour early for security searches as there have been various threats :-| Whatever anyone's thoughts & feelings on Israel/Palestine I hope everyone stays safe tonight.