Theatrical Weekend

[mashugenah]

Friday night we went to see Danny Bhoy. It was hard to stop myself from comparing him with Ed Byrne, who we saw when he was here. Both are very funny comedians, and I think both compare favourably with Lenny Henry, who I saw when he was here a year or two ago for his "So Much Things To Say" tour

Comments

[panda_pitt]

I had a similar problem with Sir Ian, I couldn't quite hear what he was saying a lot of the time. I still felt that his performance was great. I truly believed he was a mad old man, not just in an acting sense, but actually was. The reason I liked the 2nd half more, is because Lear becomes less of of a focal point.

I liked Cordelia because she was hot, but did feel that she was one of the weaker actors. Still, I can't criticize, she was better than a lot of actors I have seen on stage...

You must have been amazed by the deteriorating set... That was the most wonderful set I've seen (albeit they had lots of money, and I've not seen a play of this scale). The whole production was an amazing spectacle...

[mashugenah]

I quite agree about the second half. Indeed, I was pondering just how easily it could be interpreted as not the tragedy of Lear at all, but of Gloucester.

The set was pretty cool. It was a marvellous production... but like I said, I felt like it lacked intensity.

[panda_pitt]

I loved Gloucester... the cliffs of Dover scene was incredibly moving for me. Especially after working on it as a key example in Shakespeare of conjuring a world with voice and text.

I am still of the opinion that the set was more than pretty cool and that it had quite sufficient intensity.

[cha0sslave]

It's weird but I do not like Ed Byrne at all anymore. He used to be kickass funny years ago but he seems to be trying a bit more of a grown up look, and now he's even cut his damn hair and no longer looks like a larakin. I think he was only good with the larakin image as we, or at least I could relate better to him that way and he was a lot funnier I think before the weight of the world crushed him. He was great when he was fesh out of University and hassled the things we hassled but meh, he's changed and not for the better

[stephanie_pegg]

>The exception would be Cordelia, who had all the classic symptoms of Reciting Shakespeare rather than playing a character who happened to be Shakespearean.
Yeah, it felt a bit like she was trying too hard, compared to the more natural performances of her sisters. The stunned expression they all got when Lear asked them to say how much they loved him still makes me laugh.

John asked me at half time why it was that Kent went so out of his way to pick a fight when he got to Gloucester's house, not just with the visiting steward but with the Duke of Cornwall also. I have to confess I was stuck for an answer. Thoughts?

[mashugenah]

Not too sure either. I think it's possibly a bit of story scaffolding showing through; in much the same way as the sister's suicide at the end is. My complete works are both silent on the matter and John has my "good" copy, so I must confess that if it's not a bit of necessary machinery, I have no ready answer. :(

A bit of internet scouting revealed this as the general tenor:It is somewhat difficult to know what to make of Kent’s attack on Oswald. Oswald’s eagerness to serve the treacherous Goneril in Act I, scene iv, has established him as one of the play’s minor villains, but Kent’s barrage of insults and subsequent physical attack on Oswald are clearly unprovoked. Oswald’s failure to fight back may be interpreted as cowardice, but one can also interpret it as Oswald does: he says that he chooses not to attack Kent because of Kent’s “gray beard”-at nearly fifty, Kent is an old man and thus no longer suited for fighting (II.ii.55). Kent’s attack seems to be rooted in his anger at Goneril’s treatment of Lear-“anger hath a privilege”