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Post by nash16 on Apr 29, 2019 18:50:42 GMT
Checked a handful of dates and clearly wasnt fast enough, just the same 3-4 £40 tickets for each date, There's a few pairs in the previews still going for £25 (Thursday 2nd May, Sat 4th May) and some singles on other nights, if you get in quick now! |
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Post by Mark on Apr 29, 2019 18:59:03 GMT
Checked a handful of dates and clearly wasnt fast enough, just the same 3-4 £40 tickets for each date, There's a few pairs in the previews still going for £25 (Thursday 2nd May, Sat 4th May) and some singles on other nights, if you get in quick now! Nothing for my currently available dates unfortunately (10/13/21/22May & 15June). Hopefully more may be released this week once previews start. |
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Post by londonpostie on Apr 29, 2019 22:06:27 GMT
So looking forward to this at the Young Vic - interesting co-directors, and WHAT a cast!! Really can't wait  |
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Post by gmoneyoutlaw on Apr 29, 2019 23:52:39 GMT
I saw that they opened up seats two weeks ago and jumped on it. I only needed a single and £40 is in my price range. I've never been to the Young Vic so that will be exciting for me as well. I really love Sharon D. Clarke and amazing that she will give such a vital speech in a classic play.
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Post by londonpostie on Apr 30, 2019 7:58:06 GMT
ah, do you not have a different thread for each distinct production?
The new Young Vic version is a very differet beast, imo ..
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2019 9:44:16 GMT
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Post by sf on May 1, 2019 19:24:15 GMT
...and really good availability in all price bands, which isn't going to be the case for long. I wasn't going to bother - after The American Clock and All My Sons I thought I was All Millered Out - but I'm interested to see these actors in these roles, I've an afternoon free in London during the extension on a day there's a matinee, and my FOMO arm-wrestled my Visa card and won. Looking forward to it.
I expect going straight from this to Mamet's 'Bitter Wheat' (seeing it that evening) is going to be... interesting.
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Post by MrBunbury on May 3, 2019 8:06:23 GMT
I saw it last night. Beautiful production and solid performances that will surely become even more assured as the run goes on (Arinze’ Kene became a bit shrieky in a key scene and I struggled to understand what he was saying). I was out at 10,40 pm.
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Post by Fleance on May 3, 2019 9:23:37 GMT
I saw it last night as well and had no problem with Mr. Kene's excellent performance. Great production, well tailored to the new milieu.
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Post by latefortheoverture on May 3, 2019 18:08:49 GMT
There was intention to transfer this at first, correct?
Do we think the extension is a sign it won't be transferring now?
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Post by Rory on May 3, 2019 18:23:14 GMT
There was intention to transfer this at first, correct? Do we think the extension is a sign it won't be transferring now? Won't be direct, if it happens, as SDC going to the Kiln. |
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Post by londonpostie on May 3, 2019 20:02:17 GMT
I'd imagine Wendell Pierce has irons in the fire, as well. Here for the experience and then back to New Orleans and lucrative small screen drama.
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Post by callum on May 4, 2019 23:49:37 GMT
There tonight (so was Marianne) and this is absolutely stunning! She totally breathes life into this production and makes it seem frankly unbelievable that it was written 70 years ago. Gorgeous set, fabulous music, and simply the most shattering performances I've seen in for ages from Wendell Pierce. Sharon D Clarke gets her moment towards the Act 1 and she gives it both barrels! The whole experience was so rich and so textured, I am gobsmacked that it was still only a preview. All of the cast at the curtain looked overcome with emotion, and I'm sure that that's how the audience felt too. Pure theatre and totally extraordinary.
Needless to say, 5 stars. This MUST transfer so everyone gets the chance to see it!
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Post by tmesis on May 5, 2019 0:16:49 GMT
I was there callum too tonight and I absolutely agree with your excellent review. It was an outstanding production and set of performances. The production is very stylised but that just adds to the play's power and startling modernity. The quartet of family actors were just sensational and it was wonderful that we had such classy singers in the cast as the music added greatly to the emotional impact. You could actually feel the audience hanging on every word it was so good and I was pleased the ecstatic audience response at the end moved the actors so much - particularly Wendell Pierce. |
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Post by Snciole on May 5, 2019 17:44:57 GMT
I hadn't seen this before but I thought the casting of a black family really worked, especially in the context of Charley and Bernard being white. These young men would be lost after the war, they would be even more lost as young black men who may have been segregated. Wendell Pierce was a wonderful tragic figure, you can believe as Howard Jr states, that he was never that great a salesman but he seemed a nice bloke. Sharon D Clarke, Arinze Kene and Martins Imhangbe are incredible. Imhangbe feels like a real find.
I only paid £10 for my seat and was worried it would be a disaster but very happy with my upstairs, stage left seats.
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Post by Phantom of London on May 5, 2019 19:10:42 GMT
I was there also and really enjoyed it, for all of Arthur Millers’ skill, he certainly underperformed when it came to Awards first time around, Salesman is the exception which garnered him both the Pulitzer and Tony, So this is the second production I have seen of Salesman, the first being the excellent RSC production with the heavyweight Anthony Sher who was an exceptional Willie Loman, however I found Wendell Pierce put his own spin on this, but was just as enjoyable. Sharon D. Clarke, needs no praise, I just take it as red she is going to be great. The other actors played their roles well.
The play has one of my favourite quotes from stage, “Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory.”
New York is due another production of Salesman, so wonder if that is a reason why they had an American playing Willie Loman?
4 Stars
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Post by Rory on May 8, 2019 21:49:44 GMT
Just out of this. It is a very fluid, clever, inventive production with superlative performances, great movement and beautiful music and lighting. Really enjoyed it and think it compares very favourably with the Brian Dennehy version in 2005. I expect raves.
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Post by zahidf on May 8, 2019 22:19:12 GMT
Slow start but was great overall. Brilliant cast and lighting
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Post by theatrefan77 on May 9, 2019 8:12:00 GMT
I thought this was wonderful last night.
Marianne Elliott has added so many layers to a play which is already a masterpiece in its own right. She has a great ability to reinvent a classic by making some changes while being faithful to the original source. In her production of Company the male lead became female, and now in Death of a Salesman the Lomans are a black family. I really enjoyed the way she has cast black and white characters in different roles. It made me look at the play in a different way. Some examples below {Spoiler - click to view}
The final line 'We're free and clear' has an even bigger impact in this production with the Lomans family being black.
Interesting also having a young white man firing a black man in his sixties.
The family next door to the Lomans are white and their geeky son becomes successful in life
5 stars |
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Post by Mark on May 9, 2019 12:07:22 GMT
Rush was pretty painless today. Managed to get a front row seat in row AA for Monday - £10. Glad I’ll get the chance to see this.
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Post by craig on May 9, 2019 13:06:05 GMT
Taking my parents to see this next month and I'm delighted to hear the rave reviews!
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Post by Steve on May 9, 2019 14:39:55 GMT
Yes, I saw this last night and also loved it. Marianne Elliott plus superb performances make for pitch perfect Miller. Some spoilers follow. . . Elliott uses music, in the form of song and strummed guitar notes, to convey not only a sense of time and place, but a sense of multiple times and places existing at once in Willy Loman's fragmenting mind. She creates a visual corollary by having characters freeze frame themselves in poses etched into Willy's memory, like photographs, as he revisits key moments of his life. The feel is reminiscent of a theatrical rendering of the kind of subjective cinematic dreamscape of a Dennis Potter or a Stephen Poliakoff. In my opinion, the concerns of this piece are resolutely the concerns of Miller's "Death of a Salesman," not a comment on race, except in so far as suggesting that the concerns of Miller are the concerns of everyone. I recall how in Arinze Kene's "Misty," his character felt his humanity squeezed by racial concerns on all sides, resisting bigoted stereotypes of black masculinity, while also resisting the call to define his entire life as a resistance to such bigotry: Kene trapped inside a giant yellow balloon is the most indelible, unforgettable and successful image of that production. Here, the balloon is burst, as this production is not about race, but humanity. Biff's flaws, Biff's strengths, Willy's flaws, Linda's strengths are universally human, which every human can relate to. The acting is universally urgent: especially the way Wendell Pierce slowly shatters Willy Loman's exuberance into shards, of desperate affability, seething anger and endless delusion; Sharon D. Clarke serves up deep wells of resolve and compassion; and Arinze Kene's and Martins Imhangbe's Biff and Happy, effortlessly embody different versions of themselves across time. Kene's great strength is that he shows us Biff the man, Biff the child, then best-of-all, Biff-the-child-inside-the-man! Meanwhile, Matthew Seadon-Young just as effortlessly becomes multiple characters, from scene to scene, here a caring friend, there an indifferent boss. A fantastic ensemble. Elliot uses singing sparingly, honouring the primacy of the play, which feels like a deprivation for the audience, as there is never enough of it, so wonderfully do Clarke, Kene, Seadon-Young and co. sound when their voices blend into this still sad song of our common humanity. For me, a very moving 4 and a half stars. |
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Post by Rory on May 9, 2019 16:52:22 GMT
Fantastic review Steve.
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Post by londonpostie on May 9, 2019 20:47:43 GMT
Just picked up a £10 lucky dip for the last night on 13th July, more there to be had |
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Post by nash16 on May 9, 2019 23:00:39 GMT
AT this one tonight.
Am really sure it's going to get 5* from everyone, go to the West End, then be taken to Broadway, where they will herald it a revelation, and give Marianne her Tony's,
But, I'm still not sure about this one. Why have they turned it into a musical? Well, we know why: you've got Arinze and Sharon in your cast, and in casting them you're not going to not let them sing.
But the songs feel weirdly out of place. They could be set to be setting the scene and African American family, but they aren't needed. The play gives us the play. The songs just drag it out, making for a long evening.
Manchester Royal Exchange did the first African American Death of a Salesman I'd seen, late last year, but this one seems to be being heralded as revolutionary and a first-event.
The performances are all excellent across the board. Wendell Pierce started very upbeat, and I worried, but he got into the groove of Lohman and ended on a high.
Sharon was great, the best I've seen her in a play. The familiar folded arms of Caroline are here, and the singing voice, but she rises above both of those.
Not sure I completely felt the tragedy at the end though, but that could have been the play with its dreamlike structure and almost Brechtian playing.
The photography flash movement was really annoying. And again another factor in making this a long evening. I didn't think it added much at all. Fine for the sports field at, butthey kept using it again and again and again. To little effect.
The set was disappointing too. Like those initial sets in Angels, metallic wood, lacking imagination and I didn't feel lowering and raising chairs and tables on wires did much. It certainly didn't add to the dream like nature of the piece. And why did the bed/bedroom move slowly up at the start of a scene and then down? Does anyone see a reason for this?
Great view from side stalls seats about halfway back. Can't imagine much restriction in any seats.
But I was never fully connected with the piece, instead feeling like an outsider observing it all.
Instant standing ovation, but only myself and a few others further down my row seemed to stay seated (but that's for another thread). Do we leap up at everything? I mean this was good, but a standing ovation? I'll start something in General Chat.
3-4* from me. The critics will wet themselves though.
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