Juno and the Paycock w/ Mark Rylance - Gielgud

[oxfordsimon]

Done well, this play is amazing. But I can see how it does have the potential to fall very flat even with a high profile cast.

Shame if that is what has happened.

Rylance is a variable talent. I loved his Rooster. I disliked his Richard III. And found his Cromwell in Wolf Hall dreadful.

[lt]

Sept 23, 2024 21:08:19 GMT Dave B said:

Oh boy.

This is dreadful.


O'Casey is a big gap for me, major productions were on in London when I was living in Dublin and on in Dublin when I was living in London so I had been looking forward to this a lot albiet very wary of accents with th announced cast.

Turns out it isn't the accents that I needed to worry about, this is played as a pantomime. Rylance's Captain is a clown, one the winks, sticks out his tounge, plays to the audience - eyes seeking us out for reactions and constantly mugs to us. As the Captain talks to other characters, he looks around the audience - through all the levels. There is never explicit fourth wall breaking in the text but eye rolls and gestures and slapstick directed to us is a constant.

And it is terrible. The others aren't doing this and it just destroys any cohesion. Accents do come and go, an afterthought at best and the actual story, the tragedy is just lost under all this.


Response felt muted. A scattering of what looked to be performative standing up but people keen to be out.

Started 19.02. Done at 21.38. Early interval at 19.50 and then maybe a 2 minute pause around 20.50.

Not a high stage. Front row likely fine but don't take the middle four seats. There is a constant fire place there and I'd think it makes it a fair bit more restricted.

Can't recall the last time something left me so disappointed.

1 star.

  So glad I gave this a miss. Such a shame, O'Casey deserves better. Perhaps get the Hammersmith Lyric to do a O'Casey production instead? As I mentioned earlier in the thread, its 2018 The Plough and The Stars with the Abbey Theatre was fantastic, remains one of the best things I have ever seen.

[beguilingeyes]

Oh bugger. Day seats are online? Pretty much mixes the chances of getting any. I hate that.

[drmaplewood]

Sept 24, 2024 8:30:09 GMT beguilingeyes said:

Oh bugger. Day seats are online? Pretty much mixes the chances of getting any. I hate that.

There were still some available at 3pm yesterday, so not a hot cake yet.

[lookingatthestars]

Thanks for the feedback Dave B.

It's a pity to hear that this is how they have chosen to present this play. I often find productions of Martin McDonagh's Irish palys are done for the 'laughs' aswell. It's so lazy, and I'm surprised that a Westend stary production of J and the P has gone this way, or maybe thats the problem; a commercial venture will want to give an audience what they want - some Irish ha's ha's and sure a bit o' ould tradgy at the end.

As Oxford Simon said, done well this is a great play and (not to keep going on about it) the Druid O Casey production last year really highlighted this. Seeing the 3 plays back to back, it was actually Juno and the Paycock I found the most tragic. Yes, Plough and the Stars has the 1916 rising in the backround, misery, deaths and ends with the defeat of the Irish Rebels at GPO, and was quite the watch. But there was something about the domestic tradgey in Juno that got to me more. I mean that final scene, done right with the correct build up, is heartbreaking.

The Paycock is a larger then life charater but not pantomime, and for all the humour in some of his lines, there's a layered darkness behind him, as is the way with the play in general.

I'll agree with It, I think i'll give it a miss too and leave the glorious memories of Druid O Casey live in my mind.

[lynette]

O dear.

[westendboy]

Saw this last night with my Irish mother and I have to say, I respectfully disagree with Dave B on this. We both absoulutely loved this production from beginning to end and found no fault with the cast! My mother even said that this was the best thing she'd seen, and she's been to a number of plays/musicals.

In regards to Rylance's Captain being "clownish", I feel it made his turn towards the end far more tragic and unexpected (in a good way). I think when people hear that term, they automatically think of the more superficial aspects of that technique, like the more goofy. Rylance's Jack Boyle, to me, had elements of a "sad clown", who the audience laughs at them going through their tragic circumstances and I believe the scene with his son near the end reveals to the audience that, despite his somewhat jovial and comical energy, they realise how truly horrible of a person he is.

As for the accents (aimed at the non-Irish actors), I was pleasantly surprised by how well they were done. I wasn't sure about J. Smith-Cameron before the start, but I feel she did a very good job overall, as did Rylance. When talking to my mother on this, she found Paul Hilton (Joxer Daly) had the best out of all of them and he ended up being her favourite amongst the cast, but she still loved Rylance and Cameron-Smith!

Overall, as my first O'Casey production, I had a grand ol time and would recommend this to others! So, 5 stars from me!

[mrbarnaby]

I can’t wait to hear some comedy Oirish accents!!

[theatrefan77]

A friend saw it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll be there on Saturday.

[max]

Sept 23, 2024 21:08:19 GMT Dave B said:

Oh boy.

This is dreadful.


O'Casey is a big gap for me, major productions were on in London when I was living in Dublin and on in Dublin when I was living in London so I had been looking forward to this a lot albiet very wary of accents with th announced cast.

Turns out it isn't the accents that I needed to worry about, this is played as a pantomime. Rylance's Captain is a clown, one the winks, sticks out his tounge, plays to the audience - eyes seeking us out for reactions and constantly mugs to us. As the Captain talks to other characters, he looks around the audience - through all the levels. There is never explicit fourth wall breaking in the text but eye rolls and gestures and slapstick directed to us is a constant.

And it is terrible. The others aren't doing this and it just destroys any cohesion. Accents do come and go, an afterthought at best and the actual story, the tragedy is just lost under all this.


Response felt muted. A scattering of what looked to be performative standing up but people keen to be out.

Started 19.02. Done at 21.38. Early interval at 19.50 and then maybe a 2 minute pause around 20.50.

Not a high stage. Front row likely fine but don't take the middle four seats. There is a constant fire place there and I'd think it makes it a fair bit more restricted.

Can't recall the last time something left me so disappointed.

1 star.

I love O'Casey, and loathe the sound of what's described here!  But I'll go along in hope...

Dangerous to play Captain Boyle as an outright clown - he's revealed to be a clown by circumstances and hubris yes, but performs a dignity that's puffed up: he is the paycock/peacock after all. I think it's quite early in the play that someone says that this so-called 'Captain' was 'never a day at sea'. So yes, Captain Boyle has been a clown all along, everyone knows Captain Boyle is a sham, but nobody dares pull the edifice down - yet. He's too big a physical force, and has spent time building up this image.

The one person who shouldn't let anyone see that his feathers are falling out is the peacock himself.  So making him an audience ingratiating clown doesn't sound much like 'performed high status'.

In the scene where everyone's doing their party pieces, Captain Boyle is very critical of Joxer's failure to pitch and remember his song. He says something like 'I can't stand to see a man do a thing he can't do' (paraphrased).  So Captain Boyle is discriminating, and has taste (at least when criticising others). Why he'd make himself a rather abject clown I don't know.

And nobody is really a clown if you have feeling for the characters in the writing - their tragedy.  It's a man fashioning a version of himself that spins out of his control and flatters him - for a while.

[max]

All this has reminded me of the times O'Casey lobs a music hall double act into the middle of a play, often with a gear change that's a real jolt. Perhaps this production's majoring in that trait, I'm intrigued to see what effect they've made.

A couple of O'Caseyh's side-character double acts in their featured music hall moments:

Mr Gallaghar and Mrs Ferguson in 'The Shadow Of A Gunman', after Mrs Ferguson has said something paradoxical....
"MR GALLOGHER: Oh, Mrs Henderson, that's a parrotox.
MRS HENDERSON: It may be what a parrot talks, or a blackbird, or, for the matter of that, a lark- but it's what Julia Henderson thinks."

Terrible joke, playing on the effect of the 'Oirish' accent, but I love O'Casey for broad strokes amidst the dark detail.

There's some really funny slapstick from Simon and Sylvester in 'The Silver Tassie' as they try to work the new-fangled telephone device.

Captain Boyle and Joxer get the expanse of a full play in 'Juno And The Paycock', with the kind of competitive antipathy of old stagers on the brink of breaking up the act. Joxer's the pratfall guy, barely concealing his delight when the straight man slips up. Classic comedy dynamic - classic tragedy.

[aloysius]

I also thought this a dreadful production. I don't know whether it was Matthew Warchus or Mark Rylance who demanded he play the Rooster on stage again but it feels like he's copied and pasted that character (West Country burr and all) into a straight production, the rest of whose cast is treating the text with considerably more reverance. It's like watching two plays on stage and loses any coherence as a result. Only Paul Hilton can span the two, a bridge between Rylance's slapstick and everyone else's pathos - and that's because he's perhaps the consistently finest actor on the London stage at the moment, not Mark Rylance.

As for J Smith-Cameron - I don't know whether she's done much stage work recently in the States but I wouldn't necessarily say it comes across as a natural medium for her talents. I was getting shades of Father Ted's Mrs Doyle from her performance at times (to be sure, to be sure).

[jr]

I think Mark Rylance either on stage or film is highly overrated. I disliked Jerusalem immensely and his Oscar winning performance in Bridge of spies is so over the top that verges on ridicule (not to talk about Don't look up).

As for the play, I suppose after 100 years of its first performance, you can have different interpretations. Theatre at the time was overly dramatic and "theatrical". I would be interested in another production but not one with Mr R.

[adamkinsey]

I thought this was misguided, misdirected, miscast, and any other 'mis' you can think of.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to find Rylance overrated.

[mkb]

Ryland also does (excessively) his trademark tic of stumbling over the first words of every sentence, presumably to add naturalism, but here it's inappropriate and just adds to the clowning. If there's one thing true of the Irish, it's that they can talk, and talk well. The craic here is unusually disjointed.

[jake]

I've always liked Rylance because every time I've seen him he's been just the right side of over-acting.  Which is, usually, pretty much the same thing as being superb.  But I've always been afraid that one day he'd tip over into pure ham - and this is that day, I'm afraid.  It's probably not intentional but his Captain Jack seemed to come from the Dermot Kelly school of Irish stereotypes.  And, from what I remember, Kelly was a lot funnier.


My benchmark for this was Ciaran Hinds and Sinead Cusack - with Niamh C and Des McAleer not far behind.  Rylance and Smith-Cameron came nowhere near.  Disappointment with Rylance's interpretation might have caused me to take too negative a view but I can't really think of any significant positives.


The pacing of the production was sluggish and the insistence (which others here have noticed) on playing the comic elements like panto meant the tragic elements almost seemed to belong to a different play (Johnny was so understated early on that his awful fate seemed to come out of the blue).  

I'm not going to go on and on moaning about the production, but I should warn against being tempted by cut price seats in the rear stalls.  Our tickets warned of a slightly restricted view due to overhang of the Circle - which was fair enough; but they didn't mention the dire acoustic which is presumably attributable to the same cause.  I had the advantage of knowing the play quite well but my companion really struggled to follow what was happening - partly because of the slightly overdone accents but mainly because the sound wasn't reaching our seats.  At the interval I had a word with the woman next to me to check that it wasn't just my hearing; and she confirmed that she and her husband were also struggling.  I presume the problem is that the performers were projecting to the back of the Gallery and the sound just wasn't getting to the seats below the Circle overhang  I'll certainly never sit there again no matter how cheap the tickets.

[Mark]

Got a dayseat this morning. Was some other seats available other than the front row so I opted for row C dress circle over the front row due to potential blocking issues.

[rumbledoll]

Oct 2, 2024 9:36:57 GMT Mark said:

Got a dayseat this morning. Was some other seats available other than the front row so I opted for row C dress circle over the front row due to potential blocking issues.

Congrats Were they released right on the mark? Are they avail straight through the website or todaytix?

[Mark]

Oct 2, 2024 9:43:31 GMT rumbledoll said:

Oct 2, 2024 9:36:57 GMT Mark said:

Got a dayseat this morning. Was some other seats available other than the front row so I opted for row C dress circle over the front row due to potential blocking issues.

Congrats Were they released right on the mark? Are they avail straight through the website or todaytix?

Through Delfont. I refreshed at 10:30 and the button was there.

[max]

I haven't seen this yet, but I loved the phrasing of your diagnosis jake :

"I've always liked Rylance because every time I've seen him he's been just the right side of over-acting. Which is, usually, pretty much the same thing as being superb".

Reminds me of a phrase that someone once attributed to Mae West, but I've never been able to verify:

"Nobody ever paid for 'under the top'"

[max]

Oct 2, 2024 9:59:33 GMT Mark said:

Oct 2, 2024 9:43:31 GMT rumbledoll said:

Congrats Were they released right on the mark? Are they avail straight through the website or todaytix?

Through Delfont. I refreshed at 10:30 and the button was there.

Also, Weekly £25 tickets are released each Weds at 10.30am (for the following week). 

I just did a spot check and saw a Dress Circle £97.50 seat for £25.

[nancycunard]

Oct 2, 2024 10:11:16 GMT max said:

Oct 2, 2024 9:59:33 GMT Mark said:

Through Delfont. I refreshed at 10:30 and the button was there.

Also, Weekly £25 tickets are released each Weds at 10.30am (for the following week). 

I just did a spot check and saw a Dress Circle £97.50 seat for £25.

I got the weekly £25 tickets for this Saturday’s matinee, so I can take my dad. Pretty easy to grab, and I was on after 10.30.

[solotheatregoer]

I love Mark Rylance and agree that he’s always been on the right side of over acting but he is very miscast in this. In fact, the entire cast are. It’s all a bit slapstick and very disjointed.

As with Waiting for Godot earlier in the day, there were a couple of snorers nearby again. Not the best day of London theatre for me today sadly.

1 star.

[Steve]

Oh dear, so many people not liking this one. How sad. Definitely marmite then.

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED it tonight, and share all the feelings that westendboy had about the production.

I felt that Mark Rylance is fantastic in this! It's emotive clowning more than slapstick.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I loved the Howard Davies version, with Ciaran Hinds, which I saw from the front row at the National. It was done realistically, and movingly, and I was moved.

This version is not done realistically, it is more theatre of the absurd. The three acts are all significantly different from each other, with the trajectory of moving from comedy to tragedy.

The first act is played by a fourth wall breaking Rylance as a kind of non-silent silent movie clown (we even get silent movie style piano accompaniment music in the interval lol), complete with white-powdered face and comedy moustache, like the sad-faced Buster Keaton or like the klutzy Charlie Chaplin. I found it all MUCH MUCH funnier than the straight Davies production, as I LOVE clowning, and Rylance is a brilliant comedian. This isn't farce though, as Rylance embodies the character with severe fear and anxiety, the kind of coward who might just survive a civil war by getting paralytic and staying out of it all. Rylance is always feeling something, not just doing schtick, which is why he is so funny if you go with the style, and he shares his feckless, fearful feelings with us, constantly trying to get us onside in his relentless scheming behind the back of her indoors.

His double act comedy partner, Paul Hilton's Joxer, is a terrific and terrible rogue, scheming against everyone wickedly, including Rylance's blotto Captain Boyle, whose precious sausages he snaffles off Rylance's Boyle's plate. Since neither Joxer nor any of the other characters break the fourth wall, we are very much invited into this show from the comedic perspective of Rylance's clowning Captain Boyle, veering away from war towards distractions, which allows the horror of the civil war to perform a particularly nasty creeping turn on us as the story progresses.

After Rylance, who is a superlative, hysterically funny, conspiratorial, sad stuttering clown, and Hilton, who is wickedness run riot, I found a profound richness amongst the remaining non-clowning ensemble: most of all in Aisling Kearns's Mary, Boyle's wonderfully expressive, bold but naive, daughter, who Kearns makes the heart and soul of the piece, her eager expressive countenance ever imprinting heart-felt decency into the storytelling, as well as the extreme comedy of a good fish in bad water; I also loved Eimhin Fitzgerald Doherty's Johnny Boyle, Rylance's son, whose hollowed out expression of horror brought notes of PTSD into the background of the comedy, notes that would only grow and grow; and I loved Anna Healy's Maisie Madigan, the epitome of civilian wild excess at being caught in a war.

Everyone else in the ensemble enhanced the show for me, which ended in a darkness that felt especially dark because of the comedy that came before.

At this stage of previews, I would give this 4 and a half stars, with room to grow.

[Phantom of London]

Oh wow is this play really that bad? I am looking forward to seeing this, albeit not paying much for a ticket. We need to see where the board really stands at a glance, via a poll pease?