The National Theatre’s touring production of Hamlet that my partner and I saw last night at the Lowry Theatre in Greater Manchester was for both of us a disaster.
Poor diction - heavy trundling scenery - sudden screeching like vixens on heat - weak characterisation - at least a couple of the cast appeared to be on chloroform. Loose wandering about and masking each other. We enjoyed a good grumble in the car on our way home so thanks for that. We nearly left half way through
– I noticed that three people in the row ahead had done just that.
Poor bloody actors, at least you had a full house. The NT should be ashamed to have demanded so much of the cast. As for bad directors, We’re dragons up here and gobble 'em up.
If any production goes to prove that working in TV weakens the muscles required for acting then this is it.
Get in a voice coach and some sleep, and pray - and of course, we wish you all all the best.
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Monday, 7 February 2011
Love is
They touched hands as if their fingers were made of a gossamer of great value. They were in another world. The one who looked straight at me didn't see me, even though I could have reached out and touched her. They could have been out of a modern production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As soon as I got home I spent some time trying to recapture their moment of rapture, first with charcoal and fountain pen and then with colours on the pc. I changed their ethnicity. It was a moment of really super theatre stronger even than the excellent play I had just seen...and why? well, I suppose, I didnt have to suspend my disbelief.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Terence Rattigan's "Less Than Kind" playing at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London is a delight.
On our drive home, my partner and I chatted over how much we'd enjoyed the play and the acting, but agreed that there seemed to be something at variance with Rattigan's craftsmanship and the energy that the character, Michael, back home from Canada, had had to put into NOT appearing to be quite the awful young prig that his lines suggested.
We felt there was something missing, and that this might have been due to the passing of time. Had the play been performed when it was written in 1944 audiences would have quickly recognised Michael as being someone under the spell of Moral Re-Armament, a worldwide organisation - but one that at the end of the war was to come under a very dark cloud. People were remembering that its founder, Frank Buchman, had had dealings with the Nazis and Himmler, and, in the New York World-Telegram on August 26th 1936 had thanked God "for a man like Hitler".
Following the suggestion in the programme notes that the character of Sir John Fletcher was based on the influential Canadian, Lord Beaverbrook, I looked up MRA on the web and made an interesting connection. It seems that there had been a scandal in Canada with regard to the tough methods involved in collecting money going to support what was seen as an inappropriate life style for the leaders of MRA.
Once, on theatre tour in Scotland, I heard from a group of ladies who had set up a hostel to care for sick miners in Stirlingshire, that Moral Rearmament had closed its doors to them in a most cruel manner because they suspected them of being lesbians. From what I read, MRA put up a front of implacable homophobia to hide from the world Buchman's own homosexuality - an example of hypocrisy that might have added energy to Rattigan knocking the corners off Michael's 'superiority'. And, I suggest, would also have added authenticity to the character without straining the credulity of the audience of the time.
On our drive home, my partner and I chatted over how much we'd enjoyed the play and the acting, but agreed that there seemed to be something at variance with Rattigan's craftsmanship and the energy that the character, Michael, back home from Canada, had had to put into NOT appearing to be quite the awful young prig that his lines suggested.
We felt there was something missing, and that this might have been due to the passing of time. Had the play been performed when it was written in 1944 audiences would have quickly recognised Michael as being someone under the spell of Moral Re-Armament, a worldwide organisation - but one that at the end of the war was to come under a very dark cloud. People were remembering that its founder, Frank Buchman, had had dealings with the Nazis and Himmler, and, in the New York World-Telegram on August 26th 1936 had thanked God "for a man like Hitler".
Following the suggestion in the programme notes that the character of Sir John Fletcher was based on the influential Canadian, Lord Beaverbrook, I looked up MRA on the web and made an interesting connection. It seems that there had been a scandal in Canada with regard to the tough methods involved in collecting money going to support what was seen as an inappropriate life style for the leaders of MRA.
Once, on theatre tour in Scotland, I heard from a group of ladies who had set up a hostel to care for sick miners in Stirlingshire, that Moral Rearmament had closed its doors to them in a most cruel manner because they suspected them of being lesbians. From what I read, MRA put up a front of implacable homophobia to hide from the world Buchman's own homosexuality - an example of hypocrisy that might have added energy to Rattigan knocking the corners off Michael's 'superiority'. And, I suggest, would also have added authenticity to the character without straining the credulity of the audience of the time.
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