(no subject)
Is there anything more annoying than finding an awesome present (for yourself or someone else) and then realising that shipping is literally more than the cost of the thing itself? BAH.
Going to try and do one of the two reviews I owe now- I'm not actually at the theatre again till the 13th (that's a whole fortnight with no theatre!) so if I can't manage it then I really am an EPIC fail. The thing is they were both not entirely straight forward productions but also both really interesting so I know I'll never be happy with my reviews! But I'll try.
Here Lies Love @ National Theatre (Dorfman!)
This was the first production in the newly opened/renamed Dorfman theatre (the Cottesloe is dead, long live the Dorfman!) and I'm not even sure we'd have gone if it weren't for that and when I heard the name "Fat Boy Slim" and the words "Dress comfortably, and come ready to dance!" I have to admit my heart sank a little but it shouldn't have done!
We were in the pit/standing area so we had to arrive early and leave everything in the cloakroom (plus no drinks allowed inside!) and then when we went inside there was (very loud) music playing as if we were in a club but mostly everyone was standing around slightly awkwardly!
It became obvious pretty quickly that there was going to be a lot of forced movement, they started by taking the stage blocks that were in the centre and rotating them with stewards in dayglo boiler suits encouraging us to move and throughout the show the staging was moved around a LOT and not just the loose blocks on wheels. There were two smaller stages at either end of the space and at the end most of the standing people were made to stand on one whilst the rest of us lined the egdes and the whole stage at the other end moved! And as it moved it slowly unfolded into a series of steps which the audience on the stage were encouraged to sit on. VERY cool use of the new space and all its automation :D
There was a lot of movement generally but actually I did feel it mostly served the story rather than the other way round. it meant that we could be crowds of different sizes and allowed the actors to move amongst us sometimes, including once with a camera crew following as if a celebrity was shaking hands with the audience.
The show itself is the story of Imelda Marcos and, to be honest, before I saw it the sum total of my knowledge about her was that they found over 1000 pairs of shoes belonging to her when she fled the Philippines... of course the play ends as the helicopter takes off so that's never actually aprt of it but it was great to find out more about her.
Natalie Mendoza is wonderful in the central role, as we first meet her she's a very attractive character and as you watch her break out of poverty and enter this almost fairytale existence married to Ferdinand Marcos you want her to succeed but of course it's very quickly obvious that not all is as it seems and what at first is understandable (enjoying the wealth and the power) becomes grotesque as she ignores the real poverty and protest in the country and even denies her own past.
She has had an incredible life- some parts of the show I found myself looking up afterwards because they sounded so unreal! The local beauty queen (Rose of Tacloban) who hit it big and met her prince charming but before that she'd dated Benigno Aquino, Jr. who was one of the leaders of the political opposition! I also slightly assumed they shortened Imelda & Ferdinand's courtship but no- 11 days from meeting to marriage!
The songs are all disco type songs which isn't always my favourite type of music but I enjoyed them and they've used a lot of Imelda's own words in the lyrics (and her oppositions words as well). The songs that have stuck with me most are the title track Here Lies Love, Just Ask the Flowers which comes at the end when Benigno is killed and then the quite frankly incredible God Draws Straight which uses words from the protestors and which they sang with just a guitar and, I think, un-mic'd or certainly without all the huge volume of the rest of the show.
I've seen comments that the show is inappropriate because of the suffering Imelda & Ferdinand Marcos have caused and particularly given she's still alive and still very much involved in politics but I certainly came away feeling very much as if the protestors had the final say and as if her actions were absolutely awful even if you might be able to see why she turned out the way she did.
It will be interesting to see if its the sort of show that sticks around, I think I hope it does.
And finally today's #SeasonsReadings
3. On my Christmas list: This is actually surprisingly hard because my wishlist is on Amazon and I'm unwilling to look in case I can work out what people might have bought me already :-P LOTS of books though. I know I recently put Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography on the list though because I've always loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder even with all the controversy that surrounds them and I'm intrigued to hear a less embellished version of her story.
Going to try and do one of the two reviews I owe now- I'm not actually at the theatre again till the 13th (that's a whole fortnight with no theatre!) so if I can't manage it then I really am an EPIC fail. The thing is they were both not entirely straight forward productions but also both really interesting so I know I'll never be happy with my reviews! But I'll try.
Here Lies Love @ National Theatre (Dorfman!)
This was the first production in the newly opened/renamed Dorfman theatre (the Cottesloe is dead, long live the Dorfman!) and I'm not even sure we'd have gone if it weren't for that and when I heard the name "Fat Boy Slim" and the words "Dress comfortably, and come ready to dance!" I have to admit my heart sank a little but it shouldn't have done!
We were in the pit/standing area so we had to arrive early and leave everything in the cloakroom (plus no drinks allowed inside!) and then when we went inside there was (very loud) music playing as if we were in a club but mostly everyone was standing around slightly awkwardly!
It became obvious pretty quickly that there was going to be a lot of forced movement, they started by taking the stage blocks that were in the centre and rotating them with stewards in dayglo boiler suits encouraging us to move and throughout the show the staging was moved around a LOT and not just the loose blocks on wheels. There were two smaller stages at either end of the space and at the end most of the standing people were made to stand on one whilst the rest of us lined the egdes and the whole stage at the other end moved! And as it moved it slowly unfolded into a series of steps which the audience on the stage were encouraged to sit on. VERY cool use of the new space and all its automation :D
There was a lot of movement generally but actually I did feel it mostly served the story rather than the other way round. it meant that we could be crowds of different sizes and allowed the actors to move amongst us sometimes, including once with a camera crew following as if a celebrity was shaking hands with the audience.
The show itself is the story of Imelda Marcos and, to be honest, before I saw it the sum total of my knowledge about her was that they found over 1000 pairs of shoes belonging to her when she fled the Philippines... of course the play ends as the helicopter takes off so that's never actually aprt of it but it was great to find out more about her.
Natalie Mendoza is wonderful in the central role, as we first meet her she's a very attractive character and as you watch her break out of poverty and enter this almost fairytale existence married to Ferdinand Marcos you want her to succeed but of course it's very quickly obvious that not all is as it seems and what at first is understandable (enjoying the wealth and the power) becomes grotesque as she ignores the real poverty and protest in the country and even denies her own past.
She has had an incredible life- some parts of the show I found myself looking up afterwards because they sounded so unreal! The local beauty queen (Rose of Tacloban) who hit it big and met her prince charming but before that she'd dated Benigno Aquino, Jr. who was one of the leaders of the political opposition! I also slightly assumed they shortened Imelda & Ferdinand's courtship but no- 11 days from meeting to marriage!
The songs are all disco type songs which isn't always my favourite type of music but I enjoyed them and they've used a lot of Imelda's own words in the lyrics (and her oppositions words as well). The songs that have stuck with me most are the title track Here Lies Love, Just Ask the Flowers which comes at the end when Benigno is killed and then the quite frankly incredible God Draws Straight which uses words from the protestors and which they sang with just a guitar and, I think, un-mic'd or certainly without all the huge volume of the rest of the show.
I've seen comments that the show is inappropriate because of the suffering Imelda & Ferdinand Marcos have caused and particularly given she's still alive and still very much involved in politics but I certainly came away feeling very much as if the protestors had the final say and as if her actions were absolutely awful even if you might be able to see why she turned out the way she did.
It will be interesting to see if its the sort of show that sticks around, I think I hope it does.
And finally today's #SeasonsReadings
3. On my Christmas list: This is actually surprisingly hard because my wishlist is on Amazon and I'm unwilling to look in case I can work out what people might have bought me already :-P LOTS of books though. I know I recently put Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography on the list though because I've always loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder even with all the controversy that surrounds them and I'm intrigued to hear a less embellished version of her story.