Theatre round-up
I really ought to get in a quick theatre post here, before the next round of theatre...
On Saturday, I went to a play at the Globe in London for the first time. It was the Oresteia, the second one I've seen this year, following the modern update with extra instalment at the Almeida, and there's a third one coming up at Home. This was a fairly straight version, down to the wagon being wheeled out to display the bloody bodies after each set of murders. Katy Stephens was a powerful Clytemnestra, less subtle than Lia Williams, but this wasn't a production calling for subtlety. And I'm prepared to bet now that this is the jolliest ending of the three; I gather that the Globe likes to end with a jig, and they fused that with the idea of the missing satyr play which would originally have accompanied the tragic trilogy, and, well, you can look at the photos...
Here's the exterior of the Globe, on the south bank of the Thames.
And here's the interior (before the action). We were on the top balcony, which occasionally offered bonuses such as a view of Clytemnestra crawling away under the stage after her appearance through a trap door.
The musicians were on a lower balcony.
I think you can stand for only £5? The groundlings milled about a lot, and sometimes stood with their elbows on the stage, and from time to time the actors passed through the crowd. The man on the little platform is the Watchman, who should really have been on the roof, and there did seem to be a door plus balustrade in the roof gable, so I'm not sure why he wasn't, unless they thought it more dramatic to have him among the crowd. The little platform later became the dock when Orestes was on trial.
And at the conclusion of Eumenides, there is an unexpectedly happy ending when Athene compensates the Furies for the acquittal of Orestes by offering them a luxury pad under the Acropolis. So they become the Kindly Ones, don purple robes, and dance across the stage, joined by Bling Athene, an actual satyr (not previously featured in the plot) and a giant golden winged cock (ditto). This was all very Greek, and I decided that it was now OK to take photos, which I didn't do during the plays.
Clytemnestra, in what Michael Billington described as a Bridget Riley frock, can be seen laughing her head off to the right of the giant cock, just behind Orestes.
And they brought on a not-very-convincing dead goat (I think?) because, well, why not. And they all paraded through the crowd, and that was the end.
The next day, we saw a notice for what sounded like a jolly exciting film.
But we couldn't get tickets, so we went to see the Fassbender Macbeth instead.
In the evening, we saw one of my grandfather's one-act plays at the tiny Finborough pub theatre*, which was doing four one-acters from the Manchester School under the title Horniman's Choice. Actually I only saw the first two, because I had to catch the last train back to Manchester, but as Night Watches was in the first half that was OK. I'd read Night Watches, a potentially tragic but ultimately cheerful account of an orderly trying to sort out the fears and suspicions of soldiers in a hospital during the First World War, but not seen it; I'd forgotten that the orderly spent some time attempting to explain Macbeth... I thought they did reasonably well, but I'd have tried to spend a few more moments balancing on the sixpence before they turned on it. Haven't looked at the text again; it's possible Allan didn't give them quite enough to pull that off.
On Tuesday I was at the Royal Exchange to see Jeanette Winterson, talking about The Gap of Time, her "cover version" (or AU fanfic) of The Winter's Tale. This started with her telling us that we were all going to the Globe in 1611 (I managed to suppress the impulse to shout "I've just been there!") to see the first production of The Winter's Tale; I found her account of the play the most interesting bit of the evening, as I'd already heard her talk on the radio about her cover version, but I did enjoy her reading the opening chapter, too, and might have bought the book if I didn't have such a teetering to-read pile.
And on Thursday night I went to see the live broadcast of the Cumberbatch Hamlet, which I saw in preview at the Barbican in August. The most striking moment, as every review I've seen mentioned, remains Gertrude watching Ophelia climbing the slag heap and finally hurrying after her.
Gertrude's death still gets lost. On stage, everything was focused on the duel, and suddenly Claudius was shouting "Gertrude, do not drink" and she was drinking. I thought that the broadcast might cut to her before that, to show her guessing what was in the cup and walking towards it, but no, we were still focused on the duel until Claudius noticed her. Which is, I suppose, what it's like for the people watching the duel, but it left me unclear about what she was thinking.
Whereas I was clearer than I ever had been about what Claudius was thinking, before that awful moment when he realises he's accidentally poisoned his wife. It has finally dawned on me that Claudius is not terribly good at being a villain. He carries out one murder himself, off-stage before the play begins, but his attempts to get rid of Hamlet junior don't go all that well (and who knows how many goes he needed to pull off killing his brother?) What I realised tonight is that he thinks the duel is going to be another fiasco. Of course I understood the idea of the poisoned cup as insurance, but to be honest I really thought of it as one-upmanship. (Claudius: "We'll arrange a duel in which your sword is unbated to give you an unfair advantage!" Laertes: "Sod that, I'll poison the sword!" Claudius [not wanting to give him the last word]: "And I'll poison the refreshments!")
But the point I hadn't really grasped before is that as soon as the duel is under way Claudius thinks the cup is going to be essential after all. Laertes is supposed to be the hot favourite, so the king's official wager is not that Hamlet will win, but that "in a dozen passes between yourself (H) and him (L), he shall not exceed you three hits", ie that Laertes won't win by all that much. But Hamlet wins the first two passes, and Claudius begins to panic that Laertes's reputation has been much exaggerated, or he's out of form after recent events, and he's never going to land a hit at all (possibly the bout comes to a sudden end if Hamlet gets five hits, because then Laertes can't exceed him by three, something like a penalty shoot-out?) In which case the poisoned cup is Claudius's only hope, and this production underlines that by having him jump up and try to offer it to Hamlet after each hit, whereas I think he usually does that only once before Gertrude gets to it. Perhaps it's because he's so keen that she works out what's going on and intercepts the drink. And it's one of those things where I suspect that many people grasped the precise detail of his tactics all along, while I only understood the basic drift. But it does show that it's worth going back and back to Hamlet (occasionally I try to work out how many I've seen, but I lose count) because there are still bits that are clicking into place in my head.
Next week: Medea and The Crucible.
* If you ever go to the Finborough, eat beforehand. Their supposed catering arrangements with the pizza place next door are hopeless.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
On Saturday, I went to a play at the Globe in London for the first time. It was the Oresteia, the second one I've seen this year, following the modern update with extra instalment at the Almeida, and there's a third one coming up at Home. This was a fairly straight version, down to the wagon being wheeled out to display the bloody bodies after each set of murders. Katy Stephens was a powerful Clytemnestra, less subtle than Lia Williams, but this wasn't a production calling for subtlety. And I'm prepared to bet now that this is the jolliest ending of the three; I gather that the Globe likes to end with a jig, and they fused that with the idea of the missing satyr play which would originally have accompanied the tragic trilogy, and, well, you can look at the photos...
Here's the exterior of the Globe, on the south bank of the Thames.
And here's the interior (before the action). We were on the top balcony, which occasionally offered bonuses such as a view of Clytemnestra crawling away under the stage after her appearance through a trap door.
The musicians were on a lower balcony.
I think you can stand for only £5? The groundlings milled about a lot, and sometimes stood with their elbows on the stage, and from time to time the actors passed through the crowd. The man on the little platform is the Watchman, who should really have been on the roof, and there did seem to be a door plus balustrade in the roof gable, so I'm not sure why he wasn't, unless they thought it more dramatic to have him among the crowd. The little platform later became the dock when Orestes was on trial.
And at the conclusion of Eumenides, there is an unexpectedly happy ending when Athene compensates the Furies for the acquittal of Orestes by offering them a luxury pad under the Acropolis. So they become the Kindly Ones, don purple robes, and dance across the stage, joined by Bling Athene, an actual satyr (not previously featured in the plot) and a giant golden winged cock (ditto). This was all very Greek, and I decided that it was now OK to take photos, which I didn't do during the plays.
Clytemnestra, in what Michael Billington described as a Bridget Riley frock, can be seen laughing her head off to the right of the giant cock, just behind Orestes.
And they brought on a not-very-convincing dead goat (I think?) because, well, why not. And they all paraded through the crowd, and that was the end.
The next day, we saw a notice for what sounded like a jolly exciting film.
But we couldn't get tickets, so we went to see the Fassbender Macbeth instead.
In the evening, we saw one of my grandfather's one-act plays at the tiny Finborough pub theatre*, which was doing four one-acters from the Manchester School under the title Horniman's Choice. Actually I only saw the first two, because I had to catch the last train back to Manchester, but as Night Watches was in the first half that was OK. I'd read Night Watches, a potentially tragic but ultimately cheerful account of an orderly trying to sort out the fears and suspicions of soldiers in a hospital during the First World War, but not seen it; I'd forgotten that the orderly spent some time attempting to explain Macbeth... I thought they did reasonably well, but I'd have tried to spend a few more moments balancing on the sixpence before they turned on it. Haven't looked at the text again; it's possible Allan didn't give them quite enough to pull that off.
On Tuesday I was at the Royal Exchange to see Jeanette Winterson, talking about The Gap of Time, her "cover version" (or AU fanfic) of The Winter's Tale. This started with her telling us that we were all going to the Globe in 1611 (I managed to suppress the impulse to shout "I've just been there!") to see the first production of The Winter's Tale; I found her account of the play the most interesting bit of the evening, as I'd already heard her talk on the radio about her cover version, but I did enjoy her reading the opening chapter, too, and might have bought the book if I didn't have such a teetering to-read pile.
And on Thursday night I went to see the live broadcast of the Cumberbatch Hamlet, which I saw in preview at the Barbican in August. The most striking moment, as every review I've seen mentioned, remains Gertrude watching Ophelia climbing the slag heap and finally hurrying after her.
Gertrude's death still gets lost. On stage, everything was focused on the duel, and suddenly Claudius was shouting "Gertrude, do not drink" and she was drinking. I thought that the broadcast might cut to her before that, to show her guessing what was in the cup and walking towards it, but no, we were still focused on the duel until Claudius noticed her. Which is, I suppose, what it's like for the people watching the duel, but it left me unclear about what she was thinking.
Whereas I was clearer than I ever had been about what Claudius was thinking, before that awful moment when he realises he's accidentally poisoned his wife. It has finally dawned on me that Claudius is not terribly good at being a villain. He carries out one murder himself, off-stage before the play begins, but his attempts to get rid of Hamlet junior don't go all that well (and who knows how many goes he needed to pull off killing his brother?) What I realised tonight is that he thinks the duel is going to be another fiasco. Of course I understood the idea of the poisoned cup as insurance, but to be honest I really thought of it as one-upmanship. (Claudius: "We'll arrange a duel in which your sword is unbated to give you an unfair advantage!" Laertes: "Sod that, I'll poison the sword!" Claudius [not wanting to give him the last word]: "And I'll poison the refreshments!")
But the point I hadn't really grasped before is that as soon as the duel is under way Claudius thinks the cup is going to be essential after all. Laertes is supposed to be the hot favourite, so the king's official wager is not that Hamlet will win, but that "in a dozen passes between yourself (H) and him (L), he shall not exceed you three hits", ie that Laertes won't win by all that much. But Hamlet wins the first two passes, and Claudius begins to panic that Laertes's reputation has been much exaggerated, or he's out of form after recent events, and he's never going to land a hit at all (possibly the bout comes to a sudden end if Hamlet gets five hits, because then Laertes can't exceed him by three, something like a penalty shoot-out?) In which case the poisoned cup is Claudius's only hope, and this production underlines that by having him jump up and try to offer it to Hamlet after each hit, whereas I think he usually does that only once before Gertrude gets to it. Perhaps it's because he's so keen that she works out what's going on and intercepts the drink. And it's one of those things where I suspect that many people grasped the precise detail of his tactics all along, while I only understood the basic drift. But it does show that it's worth going back and back to Hamlet (occasionally I try to work out how many I've seen, but I lose count) because there are still bits that are clicking into place in my head.
Next week: Medea and The Crucible.
* If you ever go to the Finborough, eat beforehand. Their supposed catering arrangements with the pizza place next door are hopeless.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.