Author Archives: sheilajtheatre

As You Like It – August 2013

Experience: 7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Maria Aberg

Venue: RST

Date: Monday 12th August 2013

Our view was completely different again from our previous two visits, as we were up in the circle. Despite having a good view, I did feel a bit distanced from the production as I couldn’t see the actors’ expressions clearly – we’ve become terribly spoilt in recent years. There was more detail in some parts of the performance, but on the whole it was much the same as before, and without the surprise value I didn’t find it as uplifting as last time, hence the reduced rating.

Adam was clearly getting a little fed up with Orlando’s whinging after so many performances, as he joined in the “a thousand crowns” tonight like he’d already heard the story a thousand times. Oliver hit Orlando after the line “What, boy!”, and when he was talking with Charles later, I noticed he wrote something in a notebook after thanking the wrestler and saying he would requite him – a reminder to reward Charles in future perhaps? Charles hit Oliver on the shoulder in a friendly way before he left, but it was still a bit too hard for Oliver’s liking.

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King Lear – August 2013

Experience: 7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Company: Theatre Royal Bath Productions

Venue: Theatre Royal Bath

Date: Thursday 8th August 2013

We weren’t sure what to expect from this Lucy Bailey production as we’d had such mixed experiences with her work in the past. Tonight the technical side of things was a bit hit-and-miss, and while the setting worked OK overall, there were areas where the text jarred with the actions, the accents and the characters. Having said that, there were some very good performances to enjoy and some nice touches in the staging, so all in all it was worth the trip. It was also our first time in Bath’s Theatre Royal and it was a weird experience, looking at all the pictures of past productions and realising we’d seen about half of them, despite never having been here before. The theatre itself was comfortable and, despite the minimal toilet facilities for women, a pleasant experience.

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The Amen Corner – August 2013

Experience: 7/10

By James Baldwin

Directed by Rufus Norris

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Wednesday 7th August 2013

I was pretty tired today and found myself yawning a bit in the run up to the interval, but that was largely because, with a three act play, they took the interval after the second act. It makes for a shorter second half (apologies to any mathematicians out there) but it can be a long wait for a chance to stand up and stretch. Once refreshed, the final act came across as more powerful, and I was wiping my eyes more than once in the last half hour.

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Passion Play – August 2013

Experience: 8/10

By Peter Nichols

Directed by David Leveaux

Venue: Duke of York’s Theatre

Date: Saturday 3rd August 2013

Steve saw the original RSC production of this play, and according to our records, we both saw it in the West End in 1984 – I have no recollection of it at all. This performance will undoubtedly stay in my memory far longer, not just because of these notes but because we enjoyed ourselves as well as being moved by the characters’ situations.

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Barnum – July 2013

Experience: 8/10

Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Michael Stewart, book by Mark Bramble

With revisions by Cameron Mackintosh and Mark Bramble

Directed by Timothy Sheader

Chichester Festival Theatre in association with Cameron Mackintosh

Venue: Theatre In The Park

Date: Monday 29th July 2013

When we left this performance we were as one with our rating of the experience, but not for the usual reasons. Tonight things had gone wrong, and our enjoyment had been vastly improved as a result. Not the usual effect, but then this is theatre.

To begin with, this was our first visit to the Theatre In The Park, Chichester Festival Theatre’s temporary home while the main building, itself a ‘temporary’ venue, is given a large dose of TLC. The old dear doesn’t look well at the moment with the lettering removed and the boards up, but I’m sure she’ll be back in action next year as promised, and in much better shape.

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All’s Well That Ends Well – July 2013

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nancy Meckler

Venue: RST

Date: Tuesday 23rd July 2013

Another impressive preview from the RSC. Directed by Nancy Meckler, this production of All’s Well uses modern settings and costumes to good effect, with performances to match. There’s still some scope for improvement – the opening scenes were a little slow – but like Lafeu, my eyes smelled onions by the end. We had central seats in the stalls so we had a good view of all the action, and apart from one mobile phone going off the audience was pretty well behaved.

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Macbeth NTL – July 2013

Experience: 7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford

Manchester International Festival

Venue: Ritz cinema, Worthing

Date: Saturday 20th July 2013

This was our first time watching a live broadcast of a theatre performance in a cinema. It may not be our last, but that won’t be from choice. As this was the only way we were going to see this production I’m glad we did it, but as we suspected the cinematic process reduced our enjoyment by a huge amount. Still, it looked like a great production in many ways and from the massive number of curtain calls, the Manchester audience clearly loved it; wish we’d been there.

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The Hothouse – July 2013

Experience: 7/10

By Harold Pinter

Directed by Jamie Lloyd

Venue: Trafalgar Studio 1

Date: Thursday 18th July 2013

The heat definitely affected my enjoyment today, as the Trafalgar Studios simply don’t have air conditioning worth the name. And having experienced cinemas in Hong Kong where we had to wear a cardigan indoors because of the chill, there’s no excuse for the sort of heat we had to endure today. Of course, if it was difficult for us it must have been hell for the actors, especially with those suits, but at least they could get off stage from time to time to cool down, and with only forty-five minutes each way it was just bearable.

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Tales from Shakespeare

Remodelling and reworking Shakespeare is an inevitable part of theatre productions; it will be interesting to see what comes of this Random House project.

argumentativeoldgit's avatarThe Argumentative Old Git

Using existing works as a starting point to create new ones is hardly new. The new work created could be great works in their own right, or they could be mediocre, or they could be poor. It doesn’t matter, as the original works, which are themselves often re-workings of then existing materials, are hardly likely to be replaced.  So when Random House announced recently that they will be commissioning various writers to produce retellings, reworkings, updatings, cover versions (they seemingly couldn’t make up their mind which term to use) of every play in the Shakespeare canon, I couldn’t really see much to get too excited about. Whether this project can create anything even remotely of the stature of Verdi’s Otelloor Kurasawa’s Ran remains to be seen, but let’s not pre-judge: even if it doesn’t climb to such heights, there may well be a few worthwhile books coming out of…

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Othello – June 2013

Experience: 10/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Sunday 16th June 2013

This was a fantastic performance. The modern setting enriched the detailed characterisations while the set gave us the necessary locations without being too elaborate. We had one understudy on stage today: Robert Demeger was indisposed so Jonathan Dryden Taylor took his place as the Duke.

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