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Post by garethg on May 2, 2023 7:53:53 GMT
Oh dear. The director seems to have forgotten this is a dark comedy. Lots of dark but zero comedy. The whole point of Coward is to have both. Never seen so much arm waving by an actor as from Lia Williams who is utterly miscast. Plays it like she’s in a Greek tragedy. They’ve removed both intervals so it plays straight through with no opportunity to escape the tedious disaster on stage.
As you might be able to tell, this production wasn’t for me! Hope others have a better time.
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156 posts
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Post by meister on May 2, 2023 11:02:14 GMT
Agree - overwrought melodrama of the worst kind. Some of the supporting cast were atrocious stereotypes. Nothing to recommend
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Post by karloscar on May 3, 2023 7:35:52 GMT
Is The Vortex really a comedy? Yes there is humour in the dialogue, but the actual story is very dark. I remember seeing Rupert Everett and Maria Aitken do it years ago and there weren't a lot of laughs.
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Post by vickyg on May 3, 2023 8:23:04 GMT
Oh no, I'm seeing this in a couple of weeks. I love Lia Williams and booked purely because of her. What a shame. Hopefully the weather is nice and I have a nice morning on my first visit to Chichester as compensation!
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1,087 posts
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Post by alicechallice on May 3, 2023 11:11:47 GMT
I don't know whether we dodged a bullet with this one but my car broke down on the way to Chichester to see this last night, so our evening's entertainment involved a lot of people watching from the edge of the A27 while waiting for the AA.
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Post by Fleance on May 3, 2023 12:25:40 GMT
Despite the comments here, I'm hoping for the best. The Vortex is a fascinating play. The Maria Aitken/Rupert Everett performance of the play was one of best productions of a Coward play I'd ever seen.
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1,254 posts
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Post by theatrelover123 on May 3, 2023 12:40:36 GMT
I don't know whether we dodged a bullet with this one but my car broke down on the way to Chichester to see this last night, so our evening's entertainment involved a lot of people watching from the edge of the A27 while waiting for the AA. Were you stuck in a motorway vortex? |
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Post by alicechallice on May 3, 2023 13:37:38 GMT
I don't know whether we dodged a bullet with this one but my car broke down on the way to Chichester to see this last night, so our evening's entertainment involved a lot of people watching from the edge of the A27 while waiting for the AA. Were you stuck in a motorway vortex? Well, yes. The Vortex was still very much the appropriate title for the evening. |
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Post by Steve on May 5, 2023 17:12:22 GMT
Saw this this afternoon and liked it very much. I share the view that this isn't a comedy, but rather a melodramatic moral critique of bright young (and not so young) things, and while there are flashes of brilliance in it, I don't think it's a very good play. That said, I thought this was an absolutely terrific production of it, a 5 star production of a 3 star play. It was especially great to see Lia Williams on top flighty (and dramatic form), apparently and hopefully recovered from her recent physical injuries, and playing together opposite an equally terrific performance by her son. Some spoilers follow. . . Most of the Coward plays I've seen are obviously for laughs, usually about flighty eccentric people getting one over on middle class society by gleefully breaching all their boring stifling rules, with everything else being subtext and frills. But this play was his first hit, when I imagine that he didn't yet dare to fully embrace his own frivolous and "scandalous" instincts. Here, he tries to have his cake (ie scandalous behaviour, darling) while refusing to eat it (isn't it all so dreadful). By the time the very serious matter of WW2 kicked in, he would return to this approach of pronouncing po-faced judgement on scandalous behaviour, but with more finesse and experience, with "Brief Encounter," so all the fun plays are in between. Anyway, the scandalous behaviour here involves adultery and cocaine use amid a background milieu of all-fun-all-the-time. And Terrence Rattigan's "After the Dance" feels like a thoroughly superior reworking of this play, with the doom-laden atmosphere suiting Rattigan's poetic doomy persona a lot better than Coward's, who basically resorts to OTT melodrama 101 when it comes to critiquing the scandalous behaviour he loves to write about. I feel that Daniel Raggett does a phenomenal job of poetically Rattiganising this production, creating a circular (occasionally spinning) vortex of a stage that contains lots and lots of bright young thing pleasures, all of which he shows to be ephemeral: copious cigarette smoke wisps into nothingness; a singer sings and vanishes; splendid fashionable outfits are worn and discarded; Joshua James's Nicky plays the piano, and the piano disappears along with the melodies; characters dance merrily only to be sidelined by business and vanish. I felt thoroughly seduced by the milieu while constantly feeling it's loss, which loss I felt was wonderfully realised. The casting is exquisite across the board: Richard Cant does young Bohemian Michael York better than Michael York did (lol); Sean Delaney does "I'm young, dangerous, bored easily and disdain "effeminate" men" so perfectly that we're minutes away from the Daily Mail offering odds on him being the next James Bond; David Lancaster is so composed, forlorn, mannered and old as Lia Williams's Florence's sad cuckold of a husband that he exposes the phoniness of the world around him; Jessica Allade's singer swans in and out singing beautifully; and the central duo are pitch perfect, with Lia Williams, looking more like her real son's sister than his mother, flapping and floating about being charming, before slowly but surely revealing a soul part empty, part lost, and Joshua James combining his expertise at lightness (eg "No Quarter") and dramatic weight (eg "Fathers and Sons") to create a character who has his mother's lightness but has the poetic gravitas to challenge it. Ultimately, it is Coward's OTT melodramatic speeches, especially towards the end, that detract from the incredible work of the directors and players. At times, this is as good as "After the Dance," but at others, it is so melodramatic that nothing can save it. A terrific production nonetheless. 3 and a half stars from me.  |
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Post by bram on May 6, 2023 10:46:03 GMT
mixed bag for me .Don't now why we had the Bowie song. Don't know why the first scene is so dimly lit it makes it difficult to hear if you can't see the faces.But the last scene i found compelling not melodramatic.
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Post by orchidman on May 6, 2023 14:14:24 GMT
This is worth seeing if you want to see a production of The Vortex, hard to believe there will be a better one in the next 15 years.
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Post by theatremiss on May 6, 2023 22:20:17 GMT
Oh I’m being hopeful as I’m seeing this and 4000 Miles this Sat, a double day at Chichester.
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3,557 posts
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Post by showgirl on May 7, 2023 3:34:12 GMT
Ditto, and a first akaik for the Minerva to have a 5 pm performance which, provided it dovetails with the matinee in the main house - which apparently it does, though that info wasn't available at the time of booking so I had to chance it - is, or should be, so much easier for travelling home. Of course, the threat of train strikes and overtime bans has now returned and apparently there will be a "reduced service" that day, so waiting to see what that means, but both performances, ie this one and in the Minerva, are straight-through, no interval, so perhaps a bit gruelling but with the bonus of an earlier finish.
Slightly off-topic (apologies) but related: as there seem to be so many of us, even here, never mind amongst the wider CFT audience, who travel some distance to visit and might like to see 2 productions in one day if transport allowed, I do hope CFT will add more early evening performances. Of course, theatres generally don't offer these both as the historical model assumes people will attend after work on a weekdy (though many of the CFT regulars are clearly beyond standard working age) and some venues have restaurants, or more than one, and want people to dine there first. Wish however that they would do a poll as I could never afford to have a meal as well as paying for the ticket and train fare and besides, with the constant concern about trains and being able to get home after the performance, my priority is to ensure a prompt getaway, not to prolong the evening.
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Post by showgirl on May 11, 2023 14:06:40 GMT
Train strikes/overtime bans have now wrecked my double-booking for the matinee of this and early evening performance of 5000 Miles on Saturday 20 May as there are no trains west of Barnham. Gutting (& puzzling) that though there is a full-length, albeit reduced-frequency service on what Southern calls "Coastway East", "Coastway West" gets the short straw. During the previous period of frequent strikes this year, CFT told me they don't give credits - even to members - and with runs of such short duration and when you can't risk late evening trains even when they are running, it's difficult or impossible to rebook.
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Post by alessia on May 11, 2023 14:39:49 GMT
I'm going to see 4000 miles on 27 May, the reviews don't sound great but the train is very cheap at least...
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3,557 posts
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Post by showgirl on May 11, 2023 17:53:21 GMT
I'm going to see 4000 miles on 27 May, the reviews don't sound great but the train is very cheap at least... Oh, haven't seen any reviews of that yet (and apols - I got the title wrong); only of previous productions. At this rate maybe I'm better off missing out. |
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Post by nottobe on May 12, 2023 22:22:49 GMT
Hmmm saw this tonight and unsure. Up until the final 15 minutes or so I was enjoying it enough, it wasn’t the best or funniest play but I was not hating it. The final scene between Lia Williams and Joshua James was just to shouty and incoherent to the rest of the play and I really disengaged at this moment. There were some decisions I liked and others that didn’t work well but on the whole was a middling night out.
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Post by mrbluesky on May 17, 2023 20:30:26 GMT
Caught this a few weeks ago, and still find myself thinking about it.
Like others have said, this isn’t staged as a typical Coward comedy in the vein of Blithe Spirit or Hay Fever, it’s much more of dramatic exploration of a dysfunctional mother/son relationship and how that impacts the people around them. While I don’t think it’s Coward’s strongest play, as someone who has only ever seen his slightly lighter plays, it was definitely interesting to see his writing tackle murkier characters, and I found myself really enjoying it.
Lia Williams, as Florence, the faded beauty still clinging desperately on to her youth, was superb. I always think she’s great, but this was another level. She made Florence, who on paper could seem quite vapid and one note, into a properly realised figure, who I actually sympathised for. Her longing for connection and desperation to still be the centre of her son’s world was incredibly moving and the final scene between her and Joshua James as her son was moving, if a little bit drawn out.
On that note, Joshua James, who, as many have pointed out, is Lia Williams’ real-life son, makes a lot out of his role, in a very good way. His Nicky is irascible, petulant and spoilt, but the genius of James’ performance is that he makes you understand how Nicky has gotten to this point. You can see how a lifetime of dealing with Florence’s self-centredness has twisted him and pushed him into becoming the man before her. While Nicky’s addiction is underplayed (and perhaps underwritten), the scenes that do make reference to it are played beautifully.
The cast on a whole deliver performances that elevate the play beyond it’s melodrama, with particularly strong performances by Sean Delaney as Florence’s younger lover who finds himself caught between her and a different life, and Priyanga Burford as Florence’s best friend, who might be the only person in the play to actually show some concern for other people – her scenes with Joshua James, where she prods just enough to cause Nicky’s mask of ‘everything is fine, it’s all wonderful’ to slip and reveal the hurt young man underneath were a particular highlight. Also a shout out to David Lancaster, who plays Florence’s husband, a sad, forgotten figure of man to such perfection that I almost welled up during his final scene.
The set is simple enough, a mixture of the ephemera of a bygone era that is excellently stripped away in the final scene, until we are left with just Lia Williams and Joshua James on stage, two characters who have had everything stripped away from them. Even though the scene does get drawn out and a tad repetitive (imo), they play beautifully off each other and it ends the show really well.
It's not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen at CFT, but I really enjoyed the show, and would recommend!
3.5 stars.
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Post by tmesis on May 20, 2023 19:31:29 GMT
Had an interesting journey from leafy Surrey to Chichester for today’s matinee. The Guildford line train to Havant had no connecting service to Chichester so I took the bus from there. In the end it was only a little lengthier than normal and I’m so glad I did because I thought this an excellent production. I very much enjoyed Private Lives at The Donmar last week which, with its more modern take on Coward, has equally divided opinion. Playing it straight through as a 95 minute psycho drama really works and concentrates the mind.
Two superb performances from mother and son Lia Williams and Joshua James
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