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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 11:51:31 GMT
Missed the boat on cheap tickets for this I think... unless anyone knows of any offers or could advise on a good single seat? The seats either end of row Q in the stalls (Q3 or Q34) - £21 for "behind slim pillar", only a minor restriction on view and as noted above puts you in pole position for the loos at the interval  Just had a look and they are still available for some dates so if you're flexible you should be able to get one. On the other hand, it also doesn't look to be selling that well so you could hang on for offers! |
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Post by n1david on May 2, 2017 14:48:13 GMT
Boyega was plugging the show on the Graham Norton show last week and though he came across as fun, my daughter (who is going to see it with me) said she was somewhat less keen on the show after hearing him talk about it than she was before. I thought it was a rather odd interview - he spoke about his perception as a youth that the Old Vic was not for the likes of him, but that the new management were doing a big push to get a more diverse audience. But he didn't pitch the play in a way that would appeal to a broad audience. I'd have thought he and the Old Vic might have come up with some words that worked in the media to make this seem more accessible. When I saw the posters at the Old Vic, the subtitle showing the correct pronunciation for Woyzeck [VOY-TZECK] seems to be designed to appeal to a more rarefied audience. |
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 15:16:13 GMT
He made it sound like it was a realistic play about PTSD - which isn't quite right. How are you sure of that? |
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Post by iamian on May 2, 2017 15:36:01 GMT
Considering what happens to him and his subsequent actions, it could be said that the reason behind what he does is PTSD (though there are more obvious reasons for it in his wife's behaviour)
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2017 17:52:58 GMT
Jack Thorne has written a play set in Cold War Berlin and the lead actor probably has greater familiarity with this play than do any of us who haven't either seen or even read it yet.
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Post by partytentdown on May 14, 2017 8:17:55 GMT
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Post by zak97 on May 16, 2017 8:41:07 GMT
Brilliant play. Dark, disturbing and challenging. A fantastic cast all through. It's the sort of play I'm glad I went into blind, not knowing anything. I've never seen so many people in an audience leaning forwards with their faces I. Their hands at times. It's truly gritty at times. A warning, very strong language and themes, and full nudity in case some are uncomfortable with that.
As direction goes it is very Jack Thorne and I did notice tones of Harry Potter stylistically to begin with, them I remembered the common unity of a director.
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Post by viserys on May 16, 2017 8:54:46 GMT
"It's truly gritty at times. A warning, very strong language and themes, and full nudity in case some are uncomfortable with that.
(...)tones of Harry Potter stylistically to begin with"
These are not things I thought I'd ever read close together, but I guess I know what you mean. Nice to hear it was good, now I'm dreading it less and looking forward to it more!
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 9:25:42 GMT
Inevitable question - what was the running time please?
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Post by iamian on May 16, 2017 9:37:01 GMT
I have to disagree, I think it is a terrible adaptation of the play and the second half in particular is a mess. I went in there knowing the story and think that some of the central ideas of the play and has been removed/ignored. The sex scene and language don't really need to be as strong as they are. The set starts to get interesting and then doesn't do what I thought it was going to do which was disappointing. Performances are all fine, John Boyega is good (though his madness did stray a little towards Gollum territory) and it was in pretty good shape for a first performance.
Most of the audience did seem very enthused by it at the end though and it was a young and diverse audience which is great.
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Post by iamian on May 16, 2017 9:37:53 GMT
Running time is 2 1/2 hours including interval (we were out just before 10)
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Post by zak97 on May 16, 2017 9:52:18 GMT
"It's truly gritty at times. A warning, very strong language and themes, and full nudity in case some are uncomfortable with that. (...)tones of Harry Potter stylistically to begin with" These are not things I thought I'd ever read close together, but I guess I know what you mean. Nice to hear it was good, now I'm dreading it less and looking forward to it more! I meant as in movement with relation to the set and music to do with movement. And again, I found the get was directed in a similar way to Potter. |
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Post by zak97 on May 16, 2017 9:53:25 GMT
I have to disagree, I think it is a terrible adaptation of the play and the second half in particular is a mess. I went in there knowing the story and think that some of the central ideas of the play and has been removed/ignored. The sex scene and language don't really need to be as strong as they are. The set starts to get interesting and then doesn't do what I thought it was going to do which was disappointing. Performances are all fine, John Boyega is good (though his madness did stray a little towards Gollum territory) and it was in pretty good shape for a first performance. Most of the audience did seem very enthused by it at the end though and it was a young and diverse audience which is great. I imagine this will be a dividing play. The people behind me were confused as to what they were watching for 2.5 hours and didn't seem to enjoy much of the direction either. Personally, I would happily go again. |
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Post by iamian on May 16, 2017 9:58:36 GMT
I have to disagree, I think it is a terrible adaptation of the play and the second half in particular is a mess. I went in there knowing the story and think that some of the central ideas of the play and has been removed/ignored. The sex scene and language don't really need to be as strong as they are. The set starts to get interesting and then doesn't do what I thought it was going to do which was disappointing. Performances are all fine, John Boyega is good (though his madness did stray a little towards Gollum territory) and it was in pretty good shape for a first performance. Most of the audience did seem very enthused by it at the end though and it was a young and diverse audience which is great. I imagine this will be a dividing play. The people behind me were confused as to what they were watching for 2.5 hours and didn't seem to enjoy much of the direction either. Personally, I would happily go again. I agree, I was confused watching it because I was expecting to see certain scenes and characters that are central to the original but that were missing from this version. |
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Post by mallardo on May 16, 2017 10:41:25 GMT
Yes, John Boyega was very good after a tentative start and Sarah Greene as Marie was even better. The whole cast was solid, especially for a first performance. I actually preferred the second half to the first; the pace picked up and one could feel things starting to click into place. The set, a series of symmetrical panels raised and lowered as needed, didn't much impress.
The sex scenes were, I thought, well staged. The full frontal nudity belongs to Ben Batt, playing Andrews (Andres), and is pretty blatant - the lady next to me audibly gasped - but Nancy Carroll does go topless later in a scene that's actually, in context, a degree more disturbing.
The updating to Cold War Berlin doesn't do much for or against the piece but it gives adaptor Jack Thorne an opportunity to fill in Woyzeck's and Marie's backstory which, as we hear at some length, happened in Belfast where Woyzeck was previously stationed. Marie is Irish and came with Woyzeck to Germany when she became pregnant with their child.
As a backstory it's plausible enough and Thorne goes further by having Woyzeck haunted by the ghost memory of his mother (Nancy Carroll, superb in a double role), a prostitute who abandoned him in childhood. A young Woyzeck keeps dropping in and out of the play (somewhat unnecessarily) to remind us of the lasting impact of this youthful trauma. This, coupled with the little green pills he's taking as part of the research study carried out by the Doctor (Darrell D'Silva, excellent) seems to be the primary cause of Woyzeck's distress. There's no mention of PTSD that I heard, nor would that be relevant to this version of the story.
My issue with it is that Thorne's filling in of the many blanks contained in Buchner's original unfinished play - basically just short scenes and scene fragments - actually reduces the universality of the piece, stripping it of much of its primal power. We almost know too much about this Woyzeck - he's no longer the downtrodden Everyman, he's too specific for that. The play now feels like a strong and affecting domestic tragedy - not the elemental portrait of society's permanent underclass that emerges from Buchner.
Having said all that and, as iamian said above, the young audience was loudly enthusiastic and appreciative. The curtain call brought a quick standing ovation. My reservations aside I would certainly recommend it.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 10:47:21 GMT
One salient point, there is no one original version of the play, it was left incomplete and in no particular order. Any production, therefore, has to make decisions about how it pieces the fragments together. Some go the expressionist route but Thorne's strength is with something more external and domestic so it sounds as though he is playing to that strength.
As the play was left in fragments it is tempting to think it was meant to be like that but study of Buchner's other plays from his sadly short life, suggest that this was just a trick of fate.
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Post by iamian on May 16, 2017 11:03:00 GMT
My issue with it is that Thorne's filling in of the many blanks contained in Buchner's original unfinished play - basically just short scenes and scene fragments - actually reduces the universality of the piece, stripping it of much of its primal power. We almost know too much about this Woyzeck - he's no longer the downtrodden Everyman, he's too specific for that. The play now feels like a strong and affecting domestic tragedy - not the elemental portrait of society's permanent underclass that emerges from Buchner. Very well put and my other issue is {Spoiler - click to view}by removing the Drum Major character, the scene where he sees Marie & the drum major dancing together and all suggestions of Marie's infidelity, it changes his fear that she will leave him from something that's real and that he is powerless to prevent to something that's just in his head (and the pills just make it worse) |
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Post by Polly1 on May 16, 2017 22:06:46 GMT
Goodness, this was awful. Not even saved by a topless Nancy Carroll (although she was great in her small roles, but wasted really). I admit I knew nothing about the play beforehand and actually thought the updated setting worked ok, set was effective but 'plot' is such a mess and script is dire. Boyega was melodramatic in the extreme (shouting does not equal acting) but was very unclear, Sarah Greene's acting was ok but diction and projection hopeless (hope Dame Judi doesn't go!) It's very rare that I leave a theatre wishing I hadn't bothered but tonight was one such occasion. The mostly young audience lapped it up, what a shame they hadn't seen some decent acting. At least I only paid a tenner. So annoyed I am writing this on the train home...
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 23:52:34 GMT
Running time is 2 1/2 hours including interval (we were out just before 10) For those many of you who like to remind us how you so love to get home early from the theatre, there are two weeks of Woyzeck mid-run which start half an hour early at 7.00pm, allowing The Old Vic to schedule a second, music, show each night. |
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Post by jek on May 17, 2017 6:53:17 GMT
My 17 year old son was among the young audience at Woyzeck last night on a sixth form college trip. They've been studying the play as part of their A Level course and had to spend many an hour devising their own production, writing about its themes etc. He absolutely hated this production. I don't think it was that it was shocking (he's been doing weekly life drawing classes since he was 15 and so naked people at close quarters aren't a novelty for him) he just thought it was terrible, full of padding.
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2017 7:52:39 GMT
It has to be full of padding - even the damn opera is only about 90 minutes! ;-)
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2017 5:47:36 GMT
The Old Vic has once again lived up to my experience of being the most irritating theatre to deal with. Had to return a ticket for Saturday - it's almost sold out so they agreed to take it for resale. But (and I appreciate this is common to a lot of theatres) - they won't put it up for sale till the day of the performance. And the weird bit which I've never experienced before - they emailed me a PDF form of their terms and conditions, which I had to print out, fill in, sign, scan and mail back to them.
Box office guy was perfectly pleasant but I find this all very offputting, as with other weird Old Vic policies like forcing you to show tickets after the interval and standing in the aisle glaring at people during the curtain call. If they are (as they claim) keen to be more inclusive and welcoming to new audiences they really need to drop this nonsense.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2017 9:08:47 GMT
And the weird bit which I've never experienced before - they emailed me a PDF form of their terms and conditions, which I had to print out, fill in, sign, scan and mail back to them. Presumably you'd have already checked the Terms & Conditions box, at the time of purchase, if you'd booked online, so I'm guessing you booked in person to avoid the booking fee? Hence the need to sign it at this late stage? |
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2017 9:37:43 GMT
I booked online. This was specifically terms and conditions for ticket exchange, and involved me filling in the order number, ticket value and seat number by hand on the form. I appreciate this is less work than doing a tax return but something of a faff, and not everybody has a printer and scanner.
For various reasons I won't bore everyone with I had to deal with 3 theatres yesterday to return or exchange tickets and the Old Vic was the only one that made life difficult like this.
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Post by alexandra on May 18, 2017 10:01:20 GMT
Xanderl, out of curiosity, were the other 2 theatres subsidised? Because I think you were lucky that they agreed to take it for resale - many commercial theatres don't. And if they do provide a resale service, their house their rules I guess. I expect they've had trouble with re-sellers complaining before, and needed to nail it legally with the terms and conditions.
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