38 posts
|
Post by shakeel on Mar 14, 2017 23:45:25 GMT
(mild spoilers)
Just got back from this - liked it a lot. As others have said, incredibly bustling and chaotic production - but it all sort of works. Though I didn't find the story hugely engaging (particularly In the second act), the staging was incredible. Excellent use of projection/live camera feeds/moving sets/audio trickery, a lot of which is seemingly done live. Can completely see why previews were delayed as must have been a nightmare to perfect. Unlike in some other productions, the tech felt valuable too: for a play about the movie industry, it made sense to include this stuff. There are some scenes that can be a bit overwhelmingly busy, but all in all I think it worked well.
Thought the cast were pretty good too, though there were a couple of line slip-ups. Enjoyed the disorienting nature of having different actors play the same character at the same time: made everything feel very dynamic and engaging. Think it needs a little bit more time to perfect it, but certainly glad to have seen it.
|
|
1,477 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 19, 2017 14:17:21 GMT
A documentary about Robert Evans, the film producer, in the form of a play, you've got a like documentaries to like this (and it also helps if you are fanatical about seventies movies, like The Godfather, Marathon Man and Chinatown). Saw the matinee yesterday, and loved it. Some spoilers follow. . . I had seen the original movie documentary about a decade ago, and this feels similar to that, with added details. What you do lose here is Robert Evans own voice, as he narrated the documentary himself, sounding a lot like a world-weary Raymond Chandler detective, equal parts braggy and self-deprecating. What you gain here is a construction of movie-making taking place in front of your face, as well as a deconstruction of a personality, having him played by many fragmented voices and three faces. Of these, the most important face is Christian Camargo (who played Dexter's psycho brother on tv). It is hard to believe that Camargo came late to this project, as when he puts on those square glasses, his look, his mannerisms, his voice, everything about him uncannily resembles seventies-era Robert Evans. This is something the movie documentary did not have, a living breathing facsimile of Evans in his prime. Camargo is gold! There is something wonderfully androgynous, as well as modest about Robert Evans, which for me is part of the fascination of the man, that he does not come across as the priapic monster-famed-for-swimming-in-women-and-cocaine that the tabloids (and indeed, some of his friends) made him out to be. Instead of trying to take all the credit for films like Chinatown, he freely admits he couldn't make head or tail of Robert Towne's screenplay, that he never could understand that "Chinatown" was a metaphor rather than a place. And he tells us what it's like to be cuckolded by Ali McGraw. If Camargo's physical portrayal of Evans is definitive, Evan's definitive voice is that of Danny Huston, who plays the part that Evan's own voiceover played in the movie. This is a story about surviving, in some form or another, and Danny Huston's voiceover, accompanied by his shadow on the back screen, convincingly conveys the grizzled voice of a hapless survivor, and is the framing device for Evan's whole life story. Heather Burns, who plays the significant women in Evan's life (though only one of his wives, Ali McGraw - the other 6 wives are never even mentioned in either this show or the movie documentary) is examplary, a chameleon who morphs from playing a wispy Mia Farrow to a full-on seductive Ali McGraw, and more! She even nails her portrayal of the young Robert Evans, the show's obvious tribute to Evan's androgynous physicality. What the play uniquely achieves is having all aspects of Evans, and his life, as a clothes seller, an actor, a film studio boss, a producer, a stroke victim, exist at once, in different faces and voices, where the present, the past, and screen reflections of both present and past, combine to show how Evans, and by extension, ourselves, are all always fragments as well as forming some kind of whole. Fascinating and absorbing, with the caveat that you have to give a damn about Evans for any of this to work. 4 stars  |
|
898 posts
|
Post by bordeaux on Mar 20, 2017 9:58:13 GMT
I had mixed feelings about this; the first half is very good, though even that takes a while to get going, but after Chinatown the last 45 minutes of the show I found somewhat dull. The use of multiple actors to narrate and play the role of Evans works (though, as Parsley said of Beware of Pity, I think, there is a lot of telling not showing), and the stuff with screens is clever. But even to this fan of 1970s cinema there is something curiously unmoving about it all - the only prickle behind my eyes was when the theme tunes of The Godfather and Chinatown came up.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 20:58:01 GMT
This is horrifically awful
With total f*** ups in the video projection this evening
Again
Just people telling an abbreviated story
A series of events
Emotionally frigid
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 22:00:17 GMT
Also someone near row B stalls
Doing stinking farts
Has anyone else had to deal with this?
Very difficult
What to do?
Needed a nose gay
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 22:37:36 GMT
When I saw this towards the end of last week, there were no technical problems which I noticed.
As for being "just a series of events", that's quite a common feature of autobiographies!
Personally, I found the story and its presentation quite exhilarating. In the theatre, I was focused mainly on the rapid-fire storytelling, but the form of the show became more significant when I reflected on it over the following days.
I think you'll probably enjoy this more if you love cinema in general, and especially if you saw the movies in the cinema as they were released. But that's not necessary, just an extra dimension of enhanced interest.
This show is an amazingly complex achievement but the main thing is the story it tells of Robert Evans, the kid who stays in the picture.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2017 22:56:18 GMT
When I saw this towards the end of last week, there were no technical problems which I noticed. As for being "just a series of events", that's quite a common feature of autobiographies! Personally, I found the story and its presentation quite exhilarating. In the theatre, I was focused mainly on the rapid-fire storytelling, but the form of the show became more significant when I reflected on it over the following days. I think you'll probably enjoy this more if you love cinema in general, and especially if you saw the movies in the cinema as they were released. But that's not necessary, just an extra dimension of enhanced interest. This show is an amazingly complex achievement but the main thing is the story it tells of Robert Evans, the kid who stays in the picture. Stayed for second half Much preferred it 3 stars |
|
95 posts
|
Post by herculesmulligan on Mar 21, 2017 7:26:06 GMT
Do I need to know anything about this before seeing it or can I go in totally cold?
|
|
1,502 posts
|
Post by foxa on Mar 21, 2017 17:22:22 GMT
Hercules, I don't think you need to know a lot beforehand. I went with my daughter and she had seen 'The Godfather' and 'Love Story' but none of the other films. She still enjoyed it. (Her favourite section was the Chinatown bit, which isn't a film she knows.) There is a lot of stuff on the internet about him so you could read up a bit, but I don't think it's entirely necessary.
Sorry to miss you, Parsley, but I was up in the Circle, so not the culprit who made you reach for your (imaginary) nose gay. (Thank goodness!)
Technically, even with the errors (and they were quite a few: the screen just went out a couple of times, you could see the teleprompter reflected in the screen sometimes), it was an amazing achievement. There were segments where they were mixing archive film footage, with live footage and overlaying with photographs which being filmed as they were being placed on surfaces. They also used films/photos as backdrops for the actors to achieve some great effects. And as I think Steve mentioned above, I don't know how they would have done this without Christian Camargo - he played the mid-career Evans impressively - even carried off Evans' trademark turtleneck. Though some of it/even much of it was mesmerising, there is no escaping that some sections were actors reading off teleprompters into microphones. If you are thinking of buying tickets, I would recommend the Circle - I feel sure some of the larger projections would look best from there and the acting wasn't of the sort you really need to see up close. The ending is haunting.
4*
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:23:53 GMT
2* - Wos
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:24:50 GMT
5* - Indy
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:25:17 GMT
2* - The Stage
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:25:42 GMT
3* - GUArdian
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:27:09 GMT
4* - Da Times
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 0:28:34 GMT
3* Parsley Papers
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 10:55:48 GMT
And don't forget all those stars on the floor of the Bar and Kitchen.
|
|
423 posts
|
Post by dlevi on Mar 24, 2017 17:56:42 GMT
I thought it was one of the worst things ever...It feels as if McBureny was hired to use his bag of tricks in a project for which he had no feeling or passion. Ugh.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2017 16:58:05 GMT
Really enjoyed this at today's matinee, I would agree pretty much with steve earlier.
One thing to clarify though, it is very obvious that the teleprompters are a feature and not a bug, the audience are meant to aee them (and the actors don't refer to them, except maybe the older Evans). It's a distancing device, to remind us we are watching a reconstruction, a version, a rehearsed story of a life.
|
|
2,048 posts
|
Post by Marwood on Apr 5, 2017 21:21:49 GMT
Saw it tonight, and after really not liking the first 10-15 minutes (not helped by seeing the reflection of the prompters on the glass screen at the back of the stage and a few moments of awful acting/line reading) I grew to really like this by the ending - I don't really know that much about Evans beyond some of the films he produced in the 70s and reading some of the press he did when his book came out but I'm glad I saw this ( shame they glossed over his involvement in Popeye though 😝) I'll be generous and say 4 stars.
|
|
1,064 posts
|
Post by bellboard27 on Apr 10, 2017 8:10:13 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2017 10:35:26 GMT
What an utterly stupid and fact free discussion; they don't use the ''autocue', it's there because of the artifice of film that it mirrors and how what an audience watches isn't real, even if the story itself is real.
it just shows how boneheaded supposedly intelligent people often are, these particular culprits appear to have no understanding or recollection of contemporary European theatre, for example, and how the artifice of performance is exposed; taking Brecht into the digital age, as it were.
So, now that they have been performing for weeks do they believe that the actors still just don't know their lines? That it was some 'cheating' device because the production is devised and had late script changes? Why don't they just stop and think about what they have been told or are presuming?
The 'chattering classes' moniker seems entireky appropriate here, empty brains with airtime to fill.
|
|
