The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui - Donmar

[Deleted]

Just returned a £10 circle seat for today's matinee if anyone fancies it!

[Deleted]

Well, I'm sure this is as least as good as our school production of this play, in which I gave my Young Dogsborough. On the last night, I bravely went on with my arm in a sling, as a result of an injury incurred to my wrist in a teat pipette fight during Chemistry that afternoon. Almost forty years on, I still have the three-inch scar on my wrist where the broken end of Alex Simpson's pipette scooped a channel of skin from the surface of my wrist. The gangster's henchman who intimidated Young Dogsborough was played by John Wood (no, not that John Wood, Jan) and his performance grew more gleefully and manically violent as the run progressed. Our production was graced with an outstanding performance as Arturo Ui by Phil Jolowicz, for whom the production was created.

[wickedgrin]

Your school production was probably better!

[zahidf]

I enjoyed this. It was funny and flew by. I also thought Lenny henry was really good in the lead, he managed to portray the sinister aspect of the character very well

[lynette]

Wickedgrin I think I agree with you. Lenny Henry's basic lack of diction and modulation shown up by his fellows in this. I loved the scene with the actor and how he adjusted sitting in his chair but no I didn't think he had depth of evil, layers...and it wasn't funny. We laughed at the audience person in the trial ok but come on. And the end was cheap.

[addictedtotheatre]

Hated this. The script was so obvious, right down to the banner saying 'Make Our Country Great Again', and there was nothing for the audience to make any inferences themselves, it was just laid out for them. Toothless and dull. Agree about the level of swearing - it just drains the words of any power.

Meanwhile some of the performances were so broad that they would be better suited to a less intimate venue (such as the O2 Arena).

[Latecomer]

Firmly in the "hated this" camp. "Shoud've listened to Parsley"
I don't need to have stuff spelled out for me
I don't need limp pathetic audience participation that does not add anything
Why the excessive strong swearing that added nothing?I don't mind swearing atall, but here it just seemed to jar.
Point of the play lost? Here it seemed to be "do what you are told or you will be shot" right from the start to finish.....no development?
The end was annoying as I was just thinking...why the long speech, we get it, now can we leave this car crash of a play and I may be able to catch my train?
I quite liked the snatches of singing.
And the audience seemed to really enjoy it...sometimes I despair!

[foxa]

And I was in the 'rather liked this' camp. It had its longueurs, particularly in the first half, but then I found myself very engaged in the second half. We enjoyed the strong, characterful cast - I thought all the women were good and really all the men as well - Giles Terera had a terrific scene in the second half, thought the trial, including audience participation worked well, enjoyed the singing, use of the space was interesting.....Lenny Henry wasn't, probably, entirely right (my husband kept saying, 'I wish I'd seen Leonard Rossiter in this role, he was meant to have been amazing' - which will mean nothing to anyone on the forum under 50 or so) but yeah, we thought it was diverting and thought-provoking (husband offered a lecture on the way home dissecting the bits of the play that resembled Richard III and the bits straight from history - a la Hitler's night of the long knives, apparently.)

Compared to Woyzeck which I saw two days prior it was a work of genius - in reality, probably 3 and a half stars.

[peggs]

Right well I liked the theatre in the round as from the 3rd row of the circle it meant you had a better view as more stuff went on in the central area and the acting faced all directions. There were some nice singing voices amongst the cast. And the cauliflowers looked pretty fresh otherwise................

Oh dear, what started off quite fun quickly wore me down, it was so broad and there are only so many times i wanted to be smacked in the fact about the modern parallels, subtle this wasn't. The audience interaction when it was pre start etc was fine but the actual audience members taking part were just uncomfortable and awkward and please stop! Disappointed that didn't find Lenny Henry remotely scary, bit of an issue, it was all just too shouty, too sweary. By the end I was willing it to both end and was really irritated and probably just as well for everyone that i was safely trapped upstairs as the thoughts going through my head as they challenged the audience to vote were none too polite.

I quite liked moaning about it all the way back to the station afterwards!

[bingomatic]

Given the alternate layout of the Donmar and the terrible idea of audience participation, can anyone share thoughts on Stalls/C 39-40 ? I'm hoping they are going to be remote enough from the action that we're not presented with some lumbering idiot inanely shouting at us and trying to get us involved.

Should we be prepared for the worst?

Spoilers regarding audience participation welcome! Actual audience participation not!

[lynette]

It looked like you cn refuse to participate if you wanted to. The cast go round at the beginning to sort out the people who will actually be 'in' and to ask for some reactions at various points. Not scary.

[peggs]

Yes there's some 'when I say this' can you do this thrown out to the audience generally before hand but nothing remotely scary, all stay in your seat stuff and for the actual interaction they clearly identify people and okay it with them first so just firmly decline if it's not for you.

[bingomatic]

Thanks for the responses on audience participation. A couple of white wines beforehand and it sounds like we'll be fine.

[kathryn]

Finally saw this today. Clearly Front Row has thoroughly spoiled me - I suspect I would have quite enjoyed it for a tenner but for £40 I resented being in an incredibly uncomfortable chair and looking at people's backs for at least a quarter of the time. Not impressed.

Did they deliberately pick the most uncomfortable chairs possible to encourage people to stand at the end?

As others have noted, some nice singing voices in the cast. The majority of the audience seemed thoroughly tickled by the audience interaction but it added nothing for me. Half the audience failed to stand and were then told we were abstaining. Of course, if we had all actually marched on stage for a sit-in protest it would have totally derailed the play.

What really struck me is how little Ui is actually on stage - the play seems to be mainly about the people around him. I didn't feel like Lenny Henry had a huge amount to work with, in terms of developing a character.

In a moment of foolishness I booked a ticket for the Art of Protest fundraiser tomorrow night - I'm a bit of a sucker for a one-off event. But right now I'm not sure I can be arsed to schlep all the way back into London for it, I'm so unenthused.

[peggs]

Jun 12, 2017 15:52:23 GMT @theatremonkey said:

Caught it on Saturday afternoon. Loved Sir Lenny's personal welcome to me before the show.

Yeah that might have been my favourite bit too now you mention it and from the sounds of it lucky for once to be in circle row C as could generally see though as it progressed wasn't actually that fussed about being able to do so. Off to read your full report and enjoy re-visiting by earlier rants.