(no subject)
I seem to be having a few problems with words today, I've tried writing this several times and it keeps coming out wrong and then I think about it, work out exactly what to say, start typing and then get cross with myself again :P
So this time I shall attempt to just keep going.
So the first thing to say about Helen is that although it's a very old play (Euripides) it's a very new translation (Frank McGuiness) and whilst the costumes were a mix the set was pretty much entirely on the newer end of the scale.
I was warned, along with the other groundlings queuing near the front, not to rush to the far side of the stage and the "mojnd of tires" or I wouldn't see anything and it was good advice! The stage is sort of set up (as I discovered later in the Talking Theatre) to look like the outside of a palace undergoing work. The giant pile of shredded tires includes bits of statues seemingly thrown out, on the otherside of the stage is an altar/monument/tomb to the dead King of Egypt and at the back of the stage were large letters, some properly on the wall others not quite in place, oh and another letter on a ramp that came down at an angle in front of the stage. Turns out the letters said "Helen" in Greek (back to front and inside out as someone said :P) but that was a bit over the ehads of the audience.
ANYWAY
If you don't know it's the story of Helen of Egypt. That is to say Helen, Menelaus' wife, who was (in this version) transported safely to Egypt by Hermes, on Hera's request, and a phantom left in her place for Paris to abduct. There was, therefore, a lot of talk about quite how spectacularly pointless the Trojan wars were, how they were fought over a phantom, "the war was for nothing".
Which obviously has NO parallels with current affairs *rolls eyes hard*
That said actually during the play I was just so caught up in everything I didn't especially note the connections in a conscious way which is how it should be.
Helen was FABULOUS. I mean I adore Penny Downie anyway and getting to see her up close was wonderful. She's so full of energy and life and totally believable as a woma who, 17 years ago, was so beautiful she caused a war. But she was funny too and loyal and determined and... and she'd flash from one moment laughing and running to the next shouting angrily about her fate and how everyone hated her for things she hadn't done to the next being heartbroken (that "she" had caused the deaths of her mother and brothers) and then back to funny again.
The whole play did that, the tone was all over the place which sounds awful but actually was perfect. I think a lot of the fact that it worked comes down to Penny and to Paul McGann who convinced utterly in whichever mood they were playing.
So when they reconciled Menelaus was disbeliving and Helen was angry and afraid (as she didn't recognise him) and then they were both amazed and then distrustful and then when they finally came together... oh it genunely made my heart flutter at the way they looked at each other and just *flails* being right there at the Globe, all of 2 feet away, and seeing their looks you thought they might burn. And then two seconds later Helen was being cross at some line he said and you did believe it because romantic reconciliations do tend to be messy in real life and after 17 years of course there are doubts and fears.
So yes. The pair of them were just beautiful.
And then there was the Egyptian King (trying to marry Helen) and his sister (a Prophetess) who were both fantastic. He was absurd and ridiculous and angry and self satistied and wonderful and she was... oh she was greeat because actually in this play it was completely the women who sorted things out and solved them and she was noble and dignified and beautiful and all of that. Oh and their gatekeeper who was hilarious at first (apparently a member of one of the other comapnies at the Globe called her a "crazed sex beetle" *g*) who throws herself at Menelaus a bit after telling him to fuck off back home only then... then at the end she quite literally stands between the king's sword and his sister ♥
The other incredible thing about the production was the Chorus. A proper singing chorus except they're all actors not singers (and did very well) and also... well the original Greek Chorus may have been all men but Frank McGuiness had obviously written it as a women's Chorus BUT the Helen cast is doubling as the Romeo & Juliet cast and so women are rather in short supply. In fact there was only one woman in the Chorus and, as was pointed out at Talking Theatre, pretty much all the guys had beards! And yet you knew they were women. One rather self-referential gag aside they just were ad heartbreaking to watch them exist, quite literally, on the rubbish heap and support Helen and help her and then get left behind...
There were other fantastic people, Castor and Pollux for starters but I really don't want to say about them because OH you should go and see! And also... IDK what he was called, a muse? There was a Counter Tenor who was used a bit as part of the Chorus and a bit to sing doubling speeches from Helen and Menelaus and a bit to bring people into the story and it all sounds high concept but just worked.
The whole thing did.
The more I think about it the more I loved it AND it's only 90 minutes long so really you could easily go and see it and it might be one you could stand for if you don't usually?
And meet poor Penny Downie's eyes when she looks at the audience because she talked about that... She said it had been very ahrd with some audiences, she comes bounding onto stage with "I am Helen of Egypt" and nobody will look but our audience all did (I wonder if that was linked to the high proportion of Friends of the Globe in the audience?) but that it was the most wonderful thing when people did. When people collude with Helen and become part of the story as she asks them not to let on that Menelaus is alive (apparently in one show a little girl actually answered her plea for secrecy with "I won't tell" ♥)
One of the few things Paul McGann said (either he's shy or was overtired or IDEK but he was very quiet) was that the audience very much become a character in the play and once you learn to trust that it's fantastic.
There was a lot of the usual chat about how strange it is to get used to the acoustics and to trust them, and the light, and the audience so close and there being no prompts etc. but actually it was one of the most interesting I've been to.
Partly I think because the Chorus talked about becoming a group of women together, in fact the one actual woman said after a while, when in character, she'd actually forget they weren't (though that may be a step too far for me :P) and how they'd played a lot of physical games to get to the point of closeness they had. And then poor Billy, the counter tenor, said he'd been let in on those at first and it had been a JOY after the lonliness of opera and then they decided he wasn't really in the Chorus and sent him home and he sounded so sad I wanted to hug him :P
And Penny just sounded like she was having the time of her life, enjoying the material and the challenge and being at the Globe (she says everyone who works there smiles all the time <3)
And the composer said lots of very clever things about the music she picked and working with the different colours and tones of voices especially when they were non-singers.
Oh and Penny complained the set was much bigger and more physically challenging than it had seemed in the rehersal stage and she'd complained bitterly and she was FAR too old (she really isn't). Oh and one guys said, when she mentioned people not meeting her eyes, that he'd looked away because he was so in the play he found he couldn't meet Helen's eyes because really it's Helen of Troy! Which made me laugh quite a bit.
So that was gleeful too. Also I acquired a friend in the queue who managed to get into Talking Theatre (just) so that was lovely, he'd come all the way down from Yorkshire for a weekend of plays :D My friend N was there for the play itself, and I was chatting to another woman in the audience. I do love the Globe as much for the people I meet sometimes as the plays I see. If only I ever had the courage to ask for names or suggest coffee afterwards :P
But Helen is very much a reccomendation.
So this time I shall attempt to just keep going.
So the first thing to say about Helen is that although it's a very old play (Euripides) it's a very new translation (Frank McGuiness) and whilst the costumes were a mix the set was pretty much entirely on the newer end of the scale.
I was warned, along with the other groundlings queuing near the front, not to rush to the far side of the stage and the "mojnd of tires" or I wouldn't see anything and it was good advice! The stage is sort of set up (as I discovered later in the Talking Theatre) to look like the outside of a palace undergoing work. The giant pile of shredded tires includes bits of statues seemingly thrown out, on the otherside of the stage is an altar/monument/tomb to the dead King of Egypt and at the back of the stage were large letters, some properly on the wall others not quite in place, oh and another letter on a ramp that came down at an angle in front of the stage. Turns out the letters said "Helen" in Greek (back to front and inside out as someone said :P) but that was a bit over the ehads of the audience.
ANYWAY
If you don't know it's the story of Helen of Egypt. That is to say Helen, Menelaus' wife, who was (in this version) transported safely to Egypt by Hermes, on Hera's request, and a phantom left in her place for Paris to abduct. There was, therefore, a lot of talk about quite how spectacularly pointless the Trojan wars were, how they were fought over a phantom, "the war was for nothing".
Which obviously has NO parallels with current affairs *rolls eyes hard*
That said actually during the play I was just so caught up in everything I didn't especially note the connections in a conscious way which is how it should be.
Helen was FABULOUS. I mean I adore Penny Downie anyway and getting to see her up close was wonderful. She's so full of energy and life and totally believable as a woma who, 17 years ago, was so beautiful she caused a war. But she was funny too and loyal and determined and... and she'd flash from one moment laughing and running to the next shouting angrily about her fate and how everyone hated her for things she hadn't done to the next being heartbroken (that "she" had caused the deaths of her mother and brothers) and then back to funny again.
The whole play did that, the tone was all over the place which sounds awful but actually was perfect. I think a lot of the fact that it worked comes down to Penny and to Paul McGann who convinced utterly in whichever mood they were playing.
So when they reconciled Menelaus was disbeliving and Helen was angry and afraid (as she didn't recognise him) and then they were both amazed and then distrustful and then when they finally came together... oh it genunely made my heart flutter at the way they looked at each other and just *flails* being right there at the Globe, all of 2 feet away, and seeing their looks you thought they might burn. And then two seconds later Helen was being cross at some line he said and you did believe it because romantic reconciliations do tend to be messy in real life and after 17 years of course there are doubts and fears.
So yes. The pair of them were just beautiful.
And then there was the Egyptian King (trying to marry Helen) and his sister (a Prophetess) who were both fantastic. He was absurd and ridiculous and angry and self satistied and wonderful and she was... oh she was greeat because actually in this play it was completely the women who sorted things out and solved them and she was noble and dignified and beautiful and all of that. Oh and their gatekeeper who was hilarious at first (apparently a member of one of the other comapnies at the Globe called her a "crazed sex beetle" *g*) who throws herself at Menelaus a bit after telling him to fuck off back home only then... then at the end she quite literally stands between the king's sword and his sister ♥
The other incredible thing about the production was the Chorus. A proper singing chorus except they're all actors not singers (and did very well) and also... well the original Greek Chorus may have been all men but Frank McGuiness had obviously written it as a women's Chorus BUT the Helen cast is doubling as the Romeo & Juliet cast and so women are rather in short supply. In fact there was only one woman in the Chorus and, as was pointed out at Talking Theatre, pretty much all the guys had beards! And yet you knew they were women. One rather self-referential gag aside they just were ad heartbreaking to watch them exist, quite literally, on the rubbish heap and support Helen and help her and then get left behind...
There were other fantastic people, Castor and Pollux for starters but I really don't want to say about them because OH you should go and see! And also... IDK what he was called, a muse? There was a Counter Tenor who was used a bit as part of the Chorus and a bit to sing doubling speeches from Helen and Menelaus and a bit to bring people into the story and it all sounds high concept but just worked.
The whole thing did.
The more I think about it the more I loved it AND it's only 90 minutes long so really you could easily go and see it and it might be one you could stand for if you don't usually?
And meet poor Penny Downie's eyes when she looks at the audience because she talked about that... She said it had been very ahrd with some audiences, she comes bounding onto stage with "I am Helen of Egypt" and nobody will look but our audience all did (I wonder if that was linked to the high proportion of Friends of the Globe in the audience?) but that it was the most wonderful thing when people did. When people collude with Helen and become part of the story as she asks them not to let on that Menelaus is alive (apparently in one show a little girl actually answered her plea for secrecy with "I won't tell" ♥)
One of the few things Paul McGann said (either he's shy or was overtired or IDEK but he was very quiet) was that the audience very much become a character in the play and once you learn to trust that it's fantastic.
There was a lot of the usual chat about how strange it is to get used to the acoustics and to trust them, and the light, and the audience so close and there being no prompts etc. but actually it was one of the most interesting I've been to.
Partly I think because the Chorus talked about becoming a group of women together, in fact the one actual woman said after a while, when in character, she'd actually forget they weren't (though that may be a step too far for me :P) and how they'd played a lot of physical games to get to the point of closeness they had. And then poor Billy, the counter tenor, said he'd been let in on those at first and it had been a JOY after the lonliness of opera and then they decided he wasn't really in the Chorus and sent him home and he sounded so sad I wanted to hug him :P
And Penny just sounded like she was having the time of her life, enjoying the material and the challenge and being at the Globe (she says everyone who works there smiles all the time <3)
And the composer said lots of very clever things about the music she picked and working with the different colours and tones of voices especially when they were non-singers.
Oh and Penny complained the set was much bigger and more physically challenging than it had seemed in the rehersal stage and she'd complained bitterly and she was FAR too old (she really isn't). Oh and one guys said, when she mentioned people not meeting her eyes, that he'd looked away because he was so in the play he found he couldn't meet Helen's eyes because really it's Helen of Troy! Which made me laugh quite a bit.
So that was gleeful too. Also I acquired a friend in the queue who managed to get into Talking Theatre (just) so that was lovely, he'd come all the way down from Yorkshire for a weekend of plays :D My friend N was there for the play itself, and I was chatting to another woman in the audience. I do love the Globe as much for the people I meet sometimes as the plays I see. If only I ever had the courage to ask for names or suggest coffee afterwards :P
But Helen is very much a reccomendation.