1,217 posts
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Post by nash16 on Feb 8, 2024 23:26:18 GMT
Oh my god they keep recasting that role Different reasons though. I bet the marketing department aren't pleased. Luckily the advertising poster for it has been Kenwright quality from the off and they’ve photoshopped every Edmund in and out 😂 |
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Post by theoracle on Feb 8, 2024 23:57:53 GMT
I’m going to say I’m actually really pleased by this. I was so excited by the prospect of seeing Alex Lawther and was very disappointed to read he’d pulled out. I was optimistic looking at this thread about Anthony Boyle as I wasn’t familiar with his work. But Laurie Kynaston is excellent news in my eyes and I’m now so glad I got a ticket. Love all 4 actors again  |
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Post by Dave B on Mar 19, 2024 12:40:36 GMT
Anyone in tonight for an early report?
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Post by solotheatregoer on Mar 19, 2024 17:05:08 GMT
I’m in tonight, completely forgot it was the first show. Will report back.
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529 posts
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Post by jampot on Mar 19, 2024 20:45:15 GMT
I’m in tonight, completely forgot it was the first show. Will report back. Can you let us know what time it finishes..think its a 7pm start? |
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Post by wannabedirector on Mar 19, 2024 23:07:29 GMT
I was in for the first preview tonight, finished at 10:30 (give or take a couple of minutes), so running 3:30 at the moment, with the 7pm start.
This might be potentially a little too long for a work night, but nonetheless a play worthy of the “classic” status it has been given, with performances to boot. All 5 cast members made me completely forget tonight was the first preview.
It is long, but I’m glad I’ve ticked it off my list (although the casting would have to be very starry for me to see this again any time soon). Probably a star for every hour (and the half) if I had to rate it.
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Post by solotheatregoer on Mar 19, 2024 23:21:55 GMT
Thank goodness the seats at Wyndham’s have good legroom as this play is 30 mins too long in my opinion. Having said that, this is one of the best ensemble casts I have seen in a long time. Outstanding performances from all and everyone more than pulls their weight so it does keep you engaged.
Nice seeing Patricia Clarkson back on stage. The last time I saw her was in The Elephant Man. I am in awe of both her and Cox. Both are similar ages to my grandparents and the amount of dialogue they have the remember and deliver is amazing. Very sharp and you would never have known this was a first preview. It feels very polished already.
Set is very minimal with just a few tables and chairs. A very hesitant standing ovation at the end.
Worth it just for the acting alone but once is fine.
4 stars.
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307 posts
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Post by jm25 on Mar 19, 2024 23:27:11 GMT
Brian Cox was on the radio this morning promoting this and it's convinced me to buy a ticket, even if the run time is a bit daunting! Tempted by the front row seats - to those who were there tonight, does the stage look particularly high?
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Post by solotheatregoer on Mar 19, 2024 23:30:42 GMT
Brian Cox was on the radio this morning promoting this and it's convinced me to buy a ticket, even if the run time is a bit daunting! Tempted by the front row seats - to those who were there tonight, does the stage look particularly high? I was in row D and I did find the stage a little high. Any further forward would be a struggle in my opinion especially with this run time. The cast are pretty close to the front throughout though so you may be ok. |
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307 posts
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Post by jm25 on Mar 19, 2024 23:39:12 GMT
Brian Cox was on the radio this morning promoting this and it's convinced me to buy a ticket, even if the run time is a bit daunting! Tempted by the front row seats - to those who were there tonight, does the stage look particularly high? I was in row D and I did find the stage a little high. Any further forward would be a struggle in my opinion especially with this run time. The cast are pretty close to the front throughout though so you may be ok. Good to know! The run time is what concerns me. Might hold off booking for now and see if their day seats are an option. If not, might have to just risk front row anyway! Thank you. |
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Post by MrBunbury on Mar 21, 2024 10:15:41 GMT
I was there last night and I thought both Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson (in a more naturalistic take than what I remember was Leslie Manville's one years ago) were excellent. It did not feel like three hours and a half although I was getting a bit restless in the scene at the end where the brothers talk after the night out. Strangely, a very hesitant clapping and sparse standing ovation this time too.
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Post by proudmammoth on Mar 23, 2024 18:30:15 GMT
If anyone has a programme could you post who the understudies are.
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116 posts
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Post by alexandra on Mar 27, 2024 19:41:04 GMT
Wonderful. Gruelling, as it should be, but with an absolutely outstanding performance from Patricia Clarkson. Everyone else was pretty good too - particularly the quiet, watchful suffering of Daryl McCormack as the elder son who knows his mother is substance-abusing despite her pretence, so familiar to anyone with addiction in the family and especially of course to Eugene O’Neill, whose family this is. But it’s Clarkson’s show.
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1,475 posts
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Post by Steve on Mar 28, 2024 0:19:23 GMT
Saw it tonight, and thought it was great. Patricia Clarkson is an astonishing actress, and central to everything and everyone, but all the superb actors get their moments. The show finished at 10:25pm, so the running time is a long 3 hours and 25 minutes, including an interval, but it didn't feel like it because the play becomes exponentially more involving as time progresses. Some spoilers follow. . . With Patricia Clarkson in the play, and her role so pivotal, it really is like she is the sun and the other actors are in orbit around her. I didn't find the play quite so Mary-centric when I've seen it before (with Lesley Manville and Laurie Metcalf). The play is so well named, taking place over one long day, starting in the morning and ending in the night, and since night is when inhibitions are generally at their lowest, it is in the second half that the play really soars. Similarly, a great irony of the play is that the more drinks the characters have, the more entertaining the play, because it opens them all up, even though drink is one of the things destroying them. Even Cathleen, the family maid, played by Louisa Harland (so brilliant in "Ulster American") gets a great scene with the demon drink (the only one with a significant amount of humour, rare and welcome in this dark play). Laurie Kynaston, playing the unwell younger son, smouldered like Montgomery Clift, a living ghost existing in a state of heightened awareness and perpetual distress. As the older son, Daryl McCormack is like embers, generally subdued but constantly threatening to come alive when the dramatic wind blows, and when it does, he's fire. As the patriarch of the family, something about Brian Cox's dreamy storytelling in "The Weir" at the Donmar remains, but now the dreams are no longer wonders but obfuscations, and as his assertive exterior deflates over the course of the play, he movingly comes more and more to resemble Munch's "The Scream," open-mouthed despair personified. But it is Clarkson's moment-to-moment aliveness, and emotional quality of unstable-ness, like a nuclear reaction, veering from smiling resting face to determined plotter to living in the past (like Blanche Dubois) to genuine expressions of love to disingenuousness to despair to cruelty to self-hatred, all turning on a dime, one emotion flowing into the next, that is so involving and so brilliant. From a start that was a little cold for me, I found myself heated up to a full 4 and a half stars of rapt involvement by play's end.  |
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Post by bgarde on Mar 28, 2024 10:47:10 GMT
After reading these reviews and thoroughly enjoying Clarkson's bonkers Gray series on Netflix - have had to book for this and pleasantly surprised to see prices that aren't grotesquely exorbitant.
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Post by Jan on Mar 28, 2024 11:54:09 GMT
Thank goodness the seats at Wyndham’s have good legroom as this play is 30 mins too long in my opinion. The full text plays for 4hrs including an interval so it sounds like they’ve already taken 30 minutes out of it. |
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1,826 posts
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Post by Dave B on Mar 29, 2024 23:37:25 GMT
If anyone has a programme could you post who the understudies are. James Tyrone: Paul Eason Mary/Cathleen: Nichola MacEvilly Edmund/James Jr: Tom Mahy
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1,826 posts
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Post by Dave B on Mar 29, 2024 23:46:04 GMT
Still some time being trimmed. Went up at 19:00 on the dot, curtain call finished at 22:23 and I made the 22:29 from Charing Cross
Cast are all great, each with a moment (or two) to really shine. Slightly confused why Louise Harland with such a main role in Ulster American would take up such a small role in this, really just the one full scene.
Clarkson and Cox are of course particularly great. The time flew by, though the comfort and leg room makes that a bit easier. Only really towards the end of the final act that it started to at all slow down. Lots of coughing, lots of people checking the time on their full screen brightness phones and the 'no readmission' policy entirely not in place. Bah.
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Post by greatauntedna on Mar 30, 2024 10:35:28 GMT
Still some time being trimmed. Went up at 19:00 on the dot, curtain call finished at 22:23 and I made the 22:29 from Charing Cross
Cast are all great, each with a moment (or two) to really shine. Slightly confused why Louise Harland with such a main role in Ulster American would take up such a small role in this, really just the one full scene.
Clarkson and Cox are of course particularly great. The time flew by, though the comfort and leg room makes that a bit easier. Only really towards the end of the final act that it started to at all slow down. Lots of coughing, lots of people checking the time on their full screen brightness phones and the 'no readmission' policy entirely not in place. Bah.
It finished for me at 22:21 last Saturday. |
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Post by bgarde on Apr 4, 2024 7:25:47 GMT
Reviews seem to be a mixture of 3 and 4 stars.
I enjoyed it very much on the whole -Patricia Clarkson was so clear, so sharp that you can't take your eyes off her and the play has real dramatic energy when shes there (and after having just seen Dorian Gray and Opening Night ah for the simplicity of real dramatic magnetism on the stage without bells and whistles). The problem being in the second half (hard to describe it in terms of acts in this form) it does grind to a halt a bit when she's not present and some of it doesn't engage. There was a wide standing ovation and Cox/Clarkson were certainly worthy.
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193 posts
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Post by demelza on Apr 4, 2024 21:46:40 GMT
It's bloody long, isn't it? That second half really drags! I thought that Clarkson and Kynaston gave the best performances. Unfortunately Brian Cox was a disappoint for me. I'm not sure if I caught him on a bad night, but he seemed to be struggling with the lines quite a bit
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Post by sf on Apr 10, 2024 18:53:01 GMT
Today's matinee.
The play: great.
Brian Cox: good, but not great.
The sons: ditto
The maid: ditto
The direction: ditto
The lighting: crepuscular
The set: why did Lizzie Clachan set it in an Ole and Steen dining room?
Patricia Clarkson: sublime, heartbreaking, devastating, a must-see.
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Post by theatrefan77 on Apr 10, 2024 23:31:50 GMT
Got day seats a few days ago. I echo your comments. The set and lighting are abysmal. I've seen better in amateur productions.
Patricia Clarkson is absolutely sensational. Louise Harland is very good but her part is just too small for her to really shine. The rest of the cast are just fine, not great. Just my two cents.
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524 posts
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Post by callum on Apr 16, 2024 18:56:41 GMT
Anyone stage door-ed?
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Post by bgarde on Apr 17, 2024 3:06:00 GMT
I did! It was actually my first stage door experience and delightful - Brian Cox was very chatty to all (shook my hand which I wasn't expecting) and Clarkson also was friendly. |
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