(no subject)
The wonderful @CultureThemes people who normally promote various museum hashtags on twitter each month are having a special theatre month- the #LoveTheatre hashtag has some great behind the scenes fun <3
Of course everyday is love theatre day here on my blog :-P so it's time for another review whilst I wait for our database to stop playing silly buggers (yes you can see all the picture links, no they're not broken, yes the server is on and working).
I decided this year to make a real effort to go to new theatres and then I sort of didn't really do much to deliberately do so and yet accidentally, by just going to see things I really want to, I've done a brilliant job. I'm up to something like 14 new venues (plus an honourable mention for the Dorfman because apparently it doesn't count if it's just a rennovation/renaming *g*). Ten of those are in London but I've also done pretty well at seeing things outside the capital including heading up to Manchester for the day.
I LOVED the Royal Exchange Manchester. I mean it's too far to go often but it's such a fascinating space with the huge old exchange building (except with some quite modern coloured glass in its skylights) and then the theatre in the centre which looks like some kind of lunar landing module has just touched down! Imaginative architecture at its best (I'd say).
Hamlet @ Royal Exchange Theatre (Manchester)
I would say that once and for all (for me) this production proved that genderblind/genderswapped casts can be done with little fuss and to great effect. I'm going to leave the ever wonderful Maxine Peake's Hamlet to one side for a moment and talk about the rest of the cast because they managed the wonderful trick of 1) having a (more or less) 50/50 gender split in the cast 2) never making you feel like that was tokenistic and 3) bringing out some really interesting dynamics in the play through casting.
Obviously casting Rosencrantz & Guildenstern as a woman & a man respectively stops them being so easily confused but it also really highlights the different speech patterns that are already there in the text. Was this Rosencrantz attracted to Hamlet? She seemed to be but clearly her first loyalty was still herself/Guildenstern. And I loved the female Gravediggers, every bit as funny and knowing as in any other version.
The best swap, or the most fascinating anyway, was probably Gillian Bevan's Polonia because the advice she gives Ophelia sounds like something entirely different coming from a mother than a father- Polonius sounds old and out of touch and perhaps a little uncaring whereas Polonia's words seemed to come from experience. It didn't stop her being any less pompous but it also made me think about the way her pomposity might be a kind of armour as a woman succeeding in high office.
OH and I'm forgetting the other wonderful switch- the Player King & Queen (Second Player) were back to front! So Claire Benedict got to do the Player King's long speech which sounded utterly different coming from a woman. I wondered if the play-within-a-play would then be confusing with a woman as the King and a man as the Queen but Claire & Ben Stott never allowed it to become confusing. They had a lot of fun with the Play too because the dumbshow that always comes first was done by actual children who had apparently been allowed to more or less write their own little mime and actually having children as part of the touring company made it feel very much more real and made the moment it all goes horribly wrong much more tense because you could see the adult Players very quickly reach for the children to rush them away.
That was an incredible moment all round. The whole play is effectively in a black box (well circle) and there were some incredible lighting effects early on for the ghost using crackling and flickering lightbulbs but it's very focussed inwards as most studio/black box spaces are but then at the bring light line they threw open the curtains all around the galleries (which to be honest I hadn't even noticed WERE curtains) and suddenly light flooded in but also suddenly we could see the building outside and it was like this intense mental world that Hamlet had been inhabiting was suddenly opened out and after that everything that happens is being watched by the whole court and the wider world and the more I think about it the more I love it as a decision!
Downsides? I mean one day I'm going to see a production of Hamlet that doesn't make Ophelia strip off in her made scene and I'm going to be ecstatic but Katie West made a great Ophelia and I loved her affection with Ashley Zhangazha's Laertes <3 I think I could have done with some more from him... more anger perhaps? Or just allowed his scenes near the end to have more time because his mood changes so suddenly I wasn't entirely convinced he was so angry/heartbroken by the deaths of his mother and sister.
(I did however adore the fact that Ben Stott's Osric not only seemed irritated by Hamlet but half in love with Laertes *g*)
I liked that Horatio was obviously older than Hamlet and R&G. It made him seem steady and calm and you could see why he was Hamlet's anchor, the one who tried to keep him back from that edge of madness, and I will never stop finding those last lines heartbreaking as he says goodbye to Hamlet.
But of course that brings us to Maxine Peake's Hamlet who, well, male or female or something else? The other genderswapped casting involved them switching pronouns too but Hamlet was very definitely he throughout and Maxine has talked as if perhaps she saw Hamlet as a trans man in this? It was left very unclear but I don't think that hurt the play, I think it brought out how much of Hamlet's character is actually based on traits that are often coded as female. He thinks a lot, he finds it hard to make decisions and he several times wonders if he's really a man or if his lack of action somehow strips his manhood away. And I thought Hamlet and Ophelia had an amazing chemistry too but with this edge of strangeness- I felt as if Ophelia loved him but perhaps Hamlet couldn't believe it? Had they been lovers before he transitioned and this was awkward? Or... I mean I genuinely don't know but we had a whole bunch of conversations on the subject afterwards.
Plus having Hamlet played by a woman really made the scene between Gertrude and Hamlet zing with a whole new kind of electricity. I mean I'd watch Barbara Marten & Maxine Peake face off any day but it was fascinating to see "frailty thy name is woman" and Hamlet's tears for his mother and the way he fights with his own compassion when played between two women.
I fear this review is probably very irritating if you didn't see the play because actually it left me with a thousand questions and half formed theories and new ideas none of which I can properly articulate!
It was very definitely a production that focussed on the intimate side of Hamlet, the family in crisis and the personal relationships, rather than the larger political context (no Fortinbras) but sometimes that's nice and it certainly made me look again at a play I tend to think I know all too well!
Basically I very much want to see the play again and talk about it ALL THE TIME and also I want to make Maxine Peake (and most of the rest of the cast) sit down and tell me what they were thinking about and how they saw their characters!
The best kind of play there is in other words *g*
Of course everyday is love theatre day here on my blog :-P so it's time for another review whilst I wait for our database to stop playing silly buggers (yes you can see all the picture links, no they're not broken, yes the server is on and working).
I decided this year to make a real effort to go to new theatres and then I sort of didn't really do much to deliberately do so and yet accidentally, by just going to see things I really want to, I've done a brilliant job. I'm up to something like 14 new venues (plus an honourable mention for the Dorfman because apparently it doesn't count if it's just a rennovation/renaming *g*). Ten of those are in London but I've also done pretty well at seeing things outside the capital including heading up to Manchester for the day.
I LOVED the Royal Exchange Manchester. I mean it's too far to go often but it's such a fascinating space with the huge old exchange building (except with some quite modern coloured glass in its skylights) and then the theatre in the centre which looks like some kind of lunar landing module has just touched down! Imaginative architecture at its best (I'd say).
Hamlet @ Royal Exchange Theatre (Manchester)
I would say that once and for all (for me) this production proved that genderblind/genderswapped casts can be done with little fuss and to great effect. I'm going to leave the ever wonderful Maxine Peake's Hamlet to one side for a moment and talk about the rest of the cast because they managed the wonderful trick of 1) having a (more or less) 50/50 gender split in the cast 2) never making you feel like that was tokenistic and 3) bringing out some really interesting dynamics in the play through casting.
Obviously casting Rosencrantz & Guildenstern as a woman & a man respectively stops them being so easily confused but it also really highlights the different speech patterns that are already there in the text. Was this Rosencrantz attracted to Hamlet? She seemed to be but clearly her first loyalty was still herself/Guildenstern. And I loved the female Gravediggers, every bit as funny and knowing as in any other version.
The best swap, or the most fascinating anyway, was probably Gillian Bevan's Polonia because the advice she gives Ophelia sounds like something entirely different coming from a mother than a father- Polonius sounds old and out of touch and perhaps a little uncaring whereas Polonia's words seemed to come from experience. It didn't stop her being any less pompous but it also made me think about the way her pomposity might be a kind of armour as a woman succeeding in high office.
OH and I'm forgetting the other wonderful switch- the Player King & Queen (Second Player) were back to front! So Claire Benedict got to do the Player King's long speech which sounded utterly different coming from a woman. I wondered if the play-within-a-play would then be confusing with a woman as the King and a man as the Queen but Claire & Ben Stott never allowed it to become confusing. They had a lot of fun with the Play too because the dumbshow that always comes first was done by actual children who had apparently been allowed to more or less write their own little mime and actually having children as part of the touring company made it feel very much more real and made the moment it all goes horribly wrong much more tense because you could see the adult Players very quickly reach for the children to rush them away.
That was an incredible moment all round. The whole play is effectively in a black box (well circle) and there were some incredible lighting effects early on for the ghost using crackling and flickering lightbulbs but it's very focussed inwards as most studio/black box spaces are but then at the bring light line they threw open the curtains all around the galleries (which to be honest I hadn't even noticed WERE curtains) and suddenly light flooded in but also suddenly we could see the building outside and it was like this intense mental world that Hamlet had been inhabiting was suddenly opened out and after that everything that happens is being watched by the whole court and the wider world and the more I think about it the more I love it as a decision!
Downsides? I mean one day I'm going to see a production of Hamlet that doesn't make Ophelia strip off in her made scene and I'm going to be ecstatic but Katie West made a great Ophelia and I loved her affection with Ashley Zhangazha's Laertes <3 I think I could have done with some more from him... more anger perhaps? Or just allowed his scenes near the end to have more time because his mood changes so suddenly I wasn't entirely convinced he was so angry/heartbroken by the deaths of his mother and sister.
(I did however adore the fact that Ben Stott's Osric not only seemed irritated by Hamlet but half in love with Laertes *g*)
I liked that Horatio was obviously older than Hamlet and R&G. It made him seem steady and calm and you could see why he was Hamlet's anchor, the one who tried to keep him back from that edge of madness, and I will never stop finding those last lines heartbreaking as he says goodbye to Hamlet.
But of course that brings us to Maxine Peake's Hamlet who, well, male or female or something else? The other genderswapped casting involved them switching pronouns too but Hamlet was very definitely he throughout and Maxine has talked as if perhaps she saw Hamlet as a trans man in this? It was left very unclear but I don't think that hurt the play, I think it brought out how much of Hamlet's character is actually based on traits that are often coded as female. He thinks a lot, he finds it hard to make decisions and he several times wonders if he's really a man or if his lack of action somehow strips his manhood away. And I thought Hamlet and Ophelia had an amazing chemistry too but with this edge of strangeness- I felt as if Ophelia loved him but perhaps Hamlet couldn't believe it? Had they been lovers before he transitioned and this was awkward? Or... I mean I genuinely don't know but we had a whole bunch of conversations on the subject afterwards.
Plus having Hamlet played by a woman really made the scene between Gertrude and Hamlet zing with a whole new kind of electricity. I mean I'd watch Barbara Marten & Maxine Peake face off any day but it was fascinating to see "frailty thy name is woman" and Hamlet's tears for his mother and the way he fights with his own compassion when played between two women.
I fear this review is probably very irritating if you didn't see the play because actually it left me with a thousand questions and half formed theories and new ideas none of which I can properly articulate!
It was very definitely a production that focussed on the intimate side of Hamlet, the family in crisis and the personal relationships, rather than the larger political context (no Fortinbras) but sometimes that's nice and it certainly made me look again at a play I tend to think I know all too well!
Basically I very much want to see the play again and talk about it ALL THE TIME and also I want to make Maxine Peake (and most of the rest of the cast) sit down and tell me what they were thinking about and how they saw their characters!
The best kind of play there is in other words *g*