donmar's henry iv, euro qualifier - germany v poland
Went to see "Henry IV" at the Donmar today, the second of of Phyllida Lloyd/Harriet Walter's planned trilogy of all-female prison Shakespeare after a great Julius Caesar last year. (I wonder what they have planned to close out the trilogy. My money's on Lear.)
Was wondering what manner of truncated beast "Henry IV" was going to be, clocking in just under two hours with no interval. It turned out to be mostly Part 1 plus three scenes from Part 2 (Lady Percy mourns Hotspur + Hal and daddy in Jerusalem Chamber + "I know thee not old man, fall to thy prayers"), which made enough sense and worked ok for me, even though of course it felt a little rushed toward the end. (But I can't talk, since that's pretty much exactly the narrative route I took in Somewhere a Clock is Ticking. Fuck-all plot happens in Part 2.)
Was a bit annoyed by the pre-show conceit of herding the audience through "prison" halls as usher-guards barked at us - they didn't do it for Julius Caesar and we got the concept just fine - but the meta-narrative itself worked better here than in Caesar, IMO. I thought there were some interesting parallels being drawn in Harriet Walter's Henry IV and her inmate/director persona who's trying and barely holding the play and players together. I also liked how Falstaff broke down at the end - because how could you not - but so too did her inmate persona, hinting at much bigger issues.
MVPs: Walter, naturally, doing the most emotionally resonant Henry IV I've ever seen. Amazing face-off with Hal in two scenes. The way she laughed upon finding out the chamber was named Jerusalem - tear-inducing stuff. Jade Anouka as Hotspur and Ann Ogbomo as Westmorland were also amazing. (Plus they did a shit ton of pull-ups while reciting lines and how could you not be impressed by that.) Hotspur's manic energy and hard-nosed delivery, much like Cush Jumbo's Mark Antony last year, lit up the entire production. I'm starting to think that women are generally very good choices to play what Marjorie Garber grouped as old-school heroes in Shakespeare (my words, not hers - she had a much better term but I forget) - the ones that were larger-than-life, legendary in temper and reputation and stature but invariably had to die because they couldn't adapt to the more temperate modern age: the Hotspurs and Antonys and Tybalts of the world. (Incidentally, I also quite liked a female Tybalt in an 80s ska version of Romeo & Juliet put on by National Youth last year.)
Falstaff and Hal were also very good, but faced stiffer competition when mentally comparing them to the likes of - in recent memory - RSC's Anthony Sher + Alex Hassell, or the BBC's Simon Russell Beale + Tom Hiddleston. I'm not an actor, but it's hard not to see how they are simultaneously such rewarding and horrifying roles.
Sharon Rooney (of My Mad Fat Diary fame) played Kate Percy and had a lovely singing voice. Which I now remember she also showed off in the show. The context/interpretation was a little strange - it was more a lamentation of Hotspur's impending doom and took the place of "hear the lady sing in Welsh", which I love and missed here, as I did the tiny omitted scene of "but one hapenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" - but it was touching all the same. I liked that there was a lot of emphasis on the emotional vacuum that Hotspur left behind, which is perhaps a more feminine perspective that gets overshadowed in more traditional staging. Particularly interesting in an all-female show.
How this show is not yet sold out I don't know. I very much recommend it.
Euro qualifiers - Germany v Poland
Poland 2:0 Germany. I never really believed that we wouldn't equalise soon after the first goal at '50, but as time wore on and the Polish keeper thwarted attempt after attempt on goal, the sense of inevitability sets in. Before the match M laughed at me for even bothering to watch this match, but I never thought that it would be easy. With Basti and Khedira still injured, and Özil freshly ruled out for months(!!), 1:0 really wasn't a super unexpected outcome.
But it was pretty shocking to see Manu let in goal #2 at '87. It's not really fair to blame him; the defenders should have shut it down much earlier. But this is hardly news, that Germany is still trying to sort out its back 4. For a tiny man, Lahm sure left a colossal gap.
Not really worried though. I'm OK with the fact that gears are still trying to click into place in the absence of the midfield awesome twosome. There were some decent attempts on goal. It was however disconcerting to see that the #11 and #16 shirts already have new owners, both unfamiliar to me, and whenever those guys did anything you always get the sense that the previous owners would have done it much, much better. I'm sure that's unfair, but there you go. As I write this I'm struck by the parallel of what I said above about the roles of Falstaff and Hal. When you get down to bare bones, football and Shakespeare aren't terribly different.
Of course Poldi had to come on after a point, since it's against Poland and all, but I didn't particularly like that Schürrle had to be subbed off because I thought he was taking some pretty great chances as the situation grew more desperate. After Miro and Lahm retired, my favourite national player is probably Kroos, and it was a fairly frustrating match for him too. Again, I blame it mostly on the fact that the awesome twosome aren't around and therefore Kroos had to sit deep instead of playing the no. 10 role. Still, it always makes me happy to see him take free-kicks and corners.
(Cycling back to Schürrle and Özil. I don't particularly follow Premier League but decided to adopt Arsenal since it has the most Germans plus the team name AND the manager's name both has "arse" in it. Quite wanted to watch Arsenal v Chelsea but only ended up watching a tiny bit, which turned out not to be a bad thing since Arsenal were apparently quite outplayed. I did catch Mourihno and Wenger in their tie-tugging schoolboy fight on the sidelines, which was obviously the most important part of the entire match anyway.)
Was wondering what manner of truncated beast "Henry IV" was going to be, clocking in just under two hours with no interval. It turned out to be mostly Part 1 plus three scenes from Part 2 (Lady Percy mourns Hotspur + Hal and daddy in Jerusalem Chamber + "I know thee not old man, fall to thy prayers"), which made enough sense and worked ok for me, even though of course it felt a little rushed toward the end. (But I can't talk, since that's pretty much exactly the narrative route I took in Somewhere a Clock is Ticking. Fuck-all plot happens in Part 2.)
Was a bit annoyed by the pre-show conceit of herding the audience through "prison" halls as usher-guards barked at us - they didn't do it for Julius Caesar and we got the concept just fine - but the meta-narrative itself worked better here than in Caesar, IMO. I thought there were some interesting parallels being drawn in Harriet Walter's Henry IV and her inmate/director persona who's trying and barely holding the play and players together. I also liked how Falstaff broke down at the end - because how could you not - but so too did her inmate persona, hinting at much bigger issues.
MVPs: Walter, naturally, doing the most emotionally resonant Henry IV I've ever seen. Amazing face-off with Hal in two scenes. The way she laughed upon finding out the chamber was named Jerusalem - tear-inducing stuff. Jade Anouka as Hotspur and Ann Ogbomo as Westmorland were also amazing. (Plus they did a shit ton of pull-ups while reciting lines and how could you not be impressed by that.) Hotspur's manic energy and hard-nosed delivery, much like Cush Jumbo's Mark Antony last year, lit up the entire production. I'm starting to think that women are generally very good choices to play what Marjorie Garber grouped as old-school heroes in Shakespeare (my words, not hers - she had a much better term but I forget) - the ones that were larger-than-life, legendary in temper and reputation and stature but invariably had to die because they couldn't adapt to the more temperate modern age: the Hotspurs and Antonys and Tybalts of the world. (Incidentally, I also quite liked a female Tybalt in an 80s ska version of Romeo & Juliet put on by National Youth last year.)
Falstaff and Hal were also very good, but faced stiffer competition when mentally comparing them to the likes of - in recent memory - RSC's Anthony Sher + Alex Hassell, or the BBC's Simon Russell Beale + Tom Hiddleston. I'm not an actor, but it's hard not to see how they are simultaneously such rewarding and horrifying roles.
Sharon Rooney (of My Mad Fat Diary fame) played Kate Percy and had a lovely singing voice. Which I now remember she also showed off in the show. The context/interpretation was a little strange - it was more a lamentation of Hotspur's impending doom and took the place of "hear the lady sing in Welsh", which I love and missed here, as I did the tiny omitted scene of "but one hapenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!" - but it was touching all the same. I liked that there was a lot of emphasis on the emotional vacuum that Hotspur left behind, which is perhaps a more feminine perspective that gets overshadowed in more traditional staging. Particularly interesting in an all-female show.
How this show is not yet sold out I don't know. I very much recommend it.
Euro qualifiers - Germany v Poland
Poland 2:0 Germany. I never really believed that we wouldn't equalise soon after the first goal at '50, but as time wore on and the Polish keeper thwarted attempt after attempt on goal, the sense of inevitability sets in. Before the match M laughed at me for even bothering to watch this match, but I never thought that it would be easy. With Basti and Khedira still injured, and Özil freshly ruled out for months(!!), 1:0 really wasn't a super unexpected outcome.
But it was pretty shocking to see Manu let in goal #2 at '87. It's not really fair to blame him; the defenders should have shut it down much earlier. But this is hardly news, that Germany is still trying to sort out its back 4. For a tiny man, Lahm sure left a colossal gap.
Not really worried though. I'm OK with the fact that gears are still trying to click into place in the absence of the midfield awesome twosome. There were some decent attempts on goal. It was however disconcerting to see that the #11 and #16 shirts already have new owners, both unfamiliar to me, and whenever those guys did anything you always get the sense that the previous owners would have done it much, much better. I'm sure that's unfair, but there you go. As I write this I'm struck by the parallel of what I said above about the roles of Falstaff and Hal. When you get down to bare bones, football and Shakespeare aren't terribly different.
Of course Poldi had to come on after a point, since it's against Poland and all, but I didn't particularly like that Schürrle had to be subbed off because I thought he was taking some pretty great chances as the situation grew more desperate. After Miro and Lahm retired, my favourite national player is probably Kroos, and it was a fairly frustrating match for him too. Again, I blame it mostly on the fact that the awesome twosome aren't around and therefore Kroos had to sit deep instead of playing the no. 10 role. Still, it always makes me happy to see him take free-kicks and corners.
(Cycling back to Schürrle and Özil. I don't particularly follow Premier League but decided to adopt Arsenal since it has the most Germans plus the team name AND the manager's name both has "arse" in it. Quite wanted to watch Arsenal v Chelsea but only ended up watching a tiny bit, which turned out not to be a bad thing since Arsenal were apparently quite outplayed. I did catch Mourihno and Wenger in their tie-tugging schoolboy fight on the sidelines, which was obviously the most important part of the entire match anyway.)