London Theatre Recap
Magistrate starting John Lithgow. Technically this was still in previews, and it showed it. It's a delightful farce, but farces require exquisite timing and rock-solid delivery. This one was a bit rough in places. Still, it was a delightful show. I somehow managed to get one of the very best seats in the house at the last minute, even though the show was basically sold out.
Constellations was a weird piece. It's quirky and unique, and I wanted to like it more than I did. This review describes the show better than I can. I think the biggest stumbling block for me is that the character who was a researcher in quantum cosmology came across as ditzy.
Twelfth Night starring Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance was an absolute delight! It's being done with an all-male cast, per tradition. It's an exceptionally good production, but the best part of it was that we had on-stage seats. Each side of the stage had a two-story seating box with two rows of eight seats on each level, so that part of the audience was at eye level and only a few feet (or sometimes less) from the action. Before the show, the woman in front of us was handed a prop by one of the cast members, and instructed to hand it to him during the show at a specific time. I can't speak highly enough of the show, or of seeing it from that perspective.
Uncle Vanya was a very good production of the show, but I was sleepy and dozed off intermittently.
All That Fall is a Beckett play that was written as a radio drama. Apparently the Beckett estate has refused to allow it to be staged, but Trevor Nunn talked them into it by staging it as though the actors were performing a radio drama. Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon were both fabulous in their leading roles.
Loserville is the last show that I saw. I wanted to add a big splashy musical to the lineup, and this was what I chose. The reviews weren't the most flattering, so my expectations were low, but it was a fun and energetic show, if an eminently cliche-laden and unmemorable one. It was definitely a big splashy musical, though.
Constellations was a weird piece. It's quirky and unique, and I wanted to like it more than I did. This review describes the show better than I can. I think the biggest stumbling block for me is that the character who was a researcher in quantum cosmology came across as ditzy.
Twelfth Night starring Stephen Fry and Mark Rylance was an absolute delight! It's being done with an all-male cast, per tradition. It's an exceptionally good production, but the best part of it was that we had on-stage seats. Each side of the stage had a two-story seating box with two rows of eight seats on each level, so that part of the audience was at eye level and only a few feet (or sometimes less) from the action. Before the show, the woman in front of us was handed a prop by one of the cast members, and instructed to hand it to him during the show at a specific time. I can't speak highly enough of the show, or of seeing it from that perspective.
Uncle Vanya was a very good production of the show, but I was sleepy and dozed off intermittently.
All That Fall is a Beckett play that was written as a radio drama. Apparently the Beckett estate has refused to allow it to be staged, but Trevor Nunn talked them into it by staging it as though the actors were performing a radio drama. Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon were both fabulous in their leading roles.
Loserville is the last show that I saw. I wanted to add a big splashy musical to the lineup, and this was what I chose. The reviews weren't the most flattering, so my expectations were low, but it was a fun and energetic show, if an eminently cliche-laden and unmemorable one. It was definitely a big splashy musical, though.