Speech & Debate - Trafalgar Studios

[couldileaveyou]

Couldn't find a thread for this, so I started one especially since previews started a couple of days ago. It's a play by Stephen Karam (Tony Award for Best Play in 2016) and the cast features Douglas Booth (Riot Club, Noah), Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Patsy Ferran (As You Like It) and Charlotte Lucas (Red Velvet).

Is anyone going?

[Deleted]

I'm going this weekend. I don't suppose you've heard any rumours of a running time? I'm trying to work out when I'll be getting home but not having much luck.

[Deleted]

Douglas Booth you say? You betcha.

[couldileaveyou]

Oh @ryan , we surely have a theatrical affinity. I'm going on Tuesday and I'm pretty curious: the play seems well loved in the States and a movie adaptation is coming out this year.

@baemax , to give you a general idea the Off Broadway production was 1 hour and 45 minutes

[lonlad]

It's 95 minutes :-)

[couldileaveyou]

uhm, I'm afraid this wasn't very good.

This reminded me of Teddy Ferrara, because they are both very ambitious but never hit the mark. There is a lot going on here: adolescence and its issues, but also cyber-sex, gay cruising, abortion and teenage pregnancy, coming out and conversion therapy... All these themes are huge and deserving of a lot of attention, but the play suggests them fleetingly and then moves on.

But fear not! This is actually a lot nicer and more enjoyable than Teddy Ferrara. In the second part it stops trying so hard and embraces its sillines, which is really for the best.

Patsy Ferran is terrific, Douglas Booth is very pretty and Tony Revolori can't act for sh*t. I loved Patsi in As You Like It (I thought she was the best thing in it), and here she shines in the role of the exuberant drama kid Diwata. Her performance is warm and energetic, she's really a joy to watch: she's lovely and lovable, makes you care for her character and her performance is a comic triumph.

It's a cute show, I can see why it's doing well in colleges in USA and I'm sure I would have loved it 3/4 years ago... The comic bits are actually very nice, the problem is that when it tries to be serious it's incredibly inconsistent.

**

[mallardo]

I liked this better than couldileaveyou did but I certainly take a lot of his points. The various issues, lightly touched on, which make up what there is of a plot are not really what this play is about. The point, it seems to me, is simply to provide a setting for three excluded high school kids on the fringe of everything to come together and gradually open up to each other - something they have never done before with anyone. The three protagonists - Howie, Solomon and Diwata - are all well observed - the writing is sharp and funny as one would expect from the guy who is probably the hottest playwright in America right now, Stephen Karam.

But, as characters, they are not all equal. Clearly, Karam's favourite is the theatre nerd, Diwata, who is sensationally portrayed by Patsy Ferran. She has great material to work with and she plays to the hilt. I cannot recall a more endearing performance from anyone in recent times. She's hysterically funny and utterly lovable and she is worth, as they say, the price of admission.

Douglas Booth, as Howie, the alienated gay boy, new in town, has less to work with and has to be subtle and nuanced where Ferran is big and brash, but he is very good, totally convincing. The problem lies with the third member of the trio, Solomon - as it stands, the least interesting character. Tony Revolori, who plays him, has been successful in movies - he was Ralph Fiennes's lobby boy in Grand Hotel Budapest - but seems to be still finding his way on stage. A more polished performer in his role might have changed the dynamic of the play.

Still, it's a fun piece, lots and lots of laughs, 90 minutes played straight through. Well worth your time.

[Deleted]

Well. Dishy Douglas Booth is so very pretty. I was *this* close to an inappropriate grope but used up a years willpower to stop myself.

I really enjoyed this. Thought it jumped about a bit but it's very funny and God bless him, I'm never going to hear George Michael's 'Freedom' again without thinking of their interpretive dance routine and for that alone I'll be eternally grateful.

[Steve]

What Mallardo said. A play with an antagonist who doesn't appear, protagonists who bond Breakfast Club style, and a brilliantly hilarious Patsy Ferran.

The fact that one character, a teacher, who may or may not be a predator, does not appear, sinks this show in the dramatic stakes. There is so much said by everybody about that character that I needed to see him..

Instead, the show coasts on comedy, as one kid talks too much (Tony Revolori), one kid talks too little (Douglas Booth), and one kid only talks about herself (Patsy Ferran).

While it's nice to see Booth's ultra-laconic character disabuse the stereotype that every gay person in a drama be swimming in neuroses, all the fun lies with Patsy Ferran's Diwata. Diwata's touching and exaggerated sense of herself (her life is so apparently important she must sing her vlog as much as talk about it lol) is beautifully realised, but it's Ferran who really makes this show spark!

I remember how Ferran stole a scene from Angela Lansbury in "Blithe Spirit," and how she stole the National's "As You Like it" from everyone but the "sheep," but in this she is an absolute star! Her musical tribute to the heretofore unacknowledged praiseworthiness of Mary Warren, the Proctors' treacherous servant in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" had me in stitches!

Ferran has a rare ability to signal comedic exaggeration, while still playing straight, her bright darting knowing attention-seeking eyes, and loose rubbery limbs, allowing her to double down on the quirky comic silliness of her character, without sacrificing any of the tragic underlying loneliness of a girl who spends more time recording her voice than speaking to people.

Given how much we like letting our hair down in this country, how much we treasure actors with funny bones, I think Ferran is a dead cert for future Damehood, although by the time that happens, I'll probably actually be dead.

For the musical comedy, and for Ferran in particular, I'm very glad I saw this. 3 and a half stars.

PS: I just looked at the trailer for the movie version of this, and it's looks awful, with a horribly strained and screeching comedic opening, a disjointed and unintelligible sensitive middle section, concluding in what appears to be a weak-looking version of Pitch Perfect and Glee. There do appear to be more antagonists in the movie, but not the one named by the play! Very odd!



Looking at the trailer, the movie desperately needs Patsy Ferran, and besides, the trailer needs recutting!