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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 12:25:16 GMT
You people are all such lightweights. When Glenda Jackson played Cleopatra at Stratford in the late 70s, in Peter Brook's production, it ended at 12.15am every night.
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Post by wickedgrin on Oct 13, 2016 12:41:36 GMT
Heavens! Miss Jackson is 80! I do hope she has the stamina for this! How many matiness is she doing? A two show day sounds really tough at that age with that running time!
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Post by deadyankee on Oct 13, 2016 12:49:40 GMT
Just had an email from the Old Vic confirming the running time for this - 3 hours 30 minutes so the start has been shifted back to 7pm for evening perfs and 1pm for matinees..... Disappointing news. Can't make 1pm on the day I'm in London so have had to cancel my booking. |
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Post by jason71 on Oct 13, 2016 13:09:07 GMT
They say three and half hours, but expect it get shorter after a couple of shows
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 13:14:50 GMT
You people are all such lightweights. When Glenda Jackson played Cleopatra at Stratford in the late 70s, in Peter Brook's production, it ended at 12.15am every night. Fine if you've got a cosy Stratford B&B booked a ten minute walk from the theatre, not so fine if it's in London and you've got to get back to Marylebone for your last train 'cos the night tube hasn't made it as far as zone 9 yet.  Also that sounds like a horrendous running time for Antony & Cleopatra too. If a director can't keep the pace up, then you're going to lose audiences for more reasons than just "it's a bit long and I have a dainty bottom". I have an extremely undainty bottom, but I get bored by self-indulgent running times just like anyone else. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 13:24:23 GMT
Yes, it was a full production, in a time when the RSC employed world-class directors. Whose main priority was to serve the play, not to "keep the pace up"!
Only a small proportion of the Stratford audience is staying in a local B&B. Many more have a longer journey home.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 13:39:41 GMT
You're going to have to explain how "keeping the pace up" isn't the same thing as "serving the play". A play is telling a story to an audience - some arrogant practitioners may refuse to believe this, but the audience are a very important part of theatre. Letting the pace drop will bore people. It will make the story difficult to follow. It will render conversations nonsensical. A glacially-paced play may be satisfying for the director to explore all their ideas, or for the actors to have plenty of time to show off in, but it's incredibly self-indulgent and doesn't "serve the play" anything like as much as taking it back to the most basic "let's tell a story" idea that underpins all theatre.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 13:44:47 GMT
I can't be bothered to read a five-line paragraph.
It's so incredibly self-indulgent.
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Post by Jan on Oct 13, 2016 14:19:21 GMT
Running time turns out to be subjective, some one hour halfs are painfully tedious but some of two hours fly by. I recall one of the Nicholas Nickelby plays was 2hrs both before and after the interval. Trev's peerless Othello was over 4hrs. Lears of over 3.5 hrs are common.
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Post by martin1965 on Oct 13, 2016 15:59:30 GMT
Am going to this on 23 Nov. Dont get fuss about running time. Its King Lear, what did you expect?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 16:39:21 GMT
Dont get fuss about running time. Its King Lear, what did you expect? Apparently, they expected it to be done "at pace". But Glenda Jackson's characters think before they speak, so the Old Vic has now decided to allow her the usual time for King Lear. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 16:43:55 GMT
I recall one of the Nicholas Nickelby plays was 2hrs both before and after the interval. Trev's peerless Othello was over 4hrs. Lears of over 3.5 hrs are common. Yes, part 2 of Nick Nick started at 7.00 and ended after 11.45 (and the previews were substantially longer). And I remember that Othello at The Other Place ending at 11.45pm, but definitely not seeming a moment overlong. |
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Post by wickedgrin on Oct 13, 2016 17:07:33 GMT
Yes, Lear is a long play unless cuts are made. I am amazed they did not realise this from the beginning! Expect plenty of latecomers! Great for the "Bad Behaviour" thread!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 17:11:28 GMT
Yes, amazed it wasn't timed like this from the start. I'm seeing an evening show so the half hour shift is no big deal, but the 90 minute change for the matinee is pretty major if people have already made travel plans
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Post by popcultureboy on Oct 13, 2016 22:52:34 GMT
Heavens! Miss Jackson is 80! I do hope she has the stamina for this! How many matiness is she doing? A two show day sounds really tough at that age with that running time! There are only two 2 show days in the whole run, 19th and 23rd November. At least that part of the scheduling they paid attention to. |
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Post by wickedgrin on Oct 14, 2016 1:17:26 GMT
Thank goodness for that.
Plus with a 1.00pm start and say a 4.30pm finish she may get a bit of a nap in the 3 hours between shows!
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Post by Jan on Oct 14, 2016 6:00:47 GMT
Yes, Lear is a long play unless cuts are made. I am amazed they did not realise this from the beginning! Expect plenty of latecomers! Great for the "Bad Behaviour" thread! Also Deborah Warner is an uncompromising director, not inclined to "make it more accessible" with big cuts - I think a 3:30 running time for Lear is still cut though, probably 3:45 for the full text. I saw Warner's last King Lear which was with Brian Cox, it wasn't her best work so that is presumably why she's having another go |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2016 6:17:28 GMT
Ah, I'd forgotten it was Deborah Warner. If I recall correctly the Barbican had to move the start time of her Julius Caesar due to the run time, and possibly the same for her version of School for Scandal (which was well over 3 hours). Makes it even odder that they didn't realise this from the start.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 14, 2016 9:11:51 GMT
Yes, Lear is a long play unless cuts are made. I am amazed they did not realise this from the beginning! Expect plenty of latecomers! Great for the "Bad Behaviour" thread! Also Deborah Warner is an uncompromising director, not inclined to "make it more accessible" with big cuts - I think a 3:30 running time for Lear is still cut though, probably 3:45 for the full text. I saw Warner's last King Lear which was with Brian Cox, it wasn't her best work so that is presumably why she's having another go I seem to recall she'd done one before with Kick theatre too. I enjoyed the Cox one, though i seem to recall Cox putting a Red Nose Day red nose on the dead Cornelia's nose, which struck me as a terrible directorial decision. McKellen was Kent, of course, very impressive; and it was presumably a very fine cast, though I've seen so many I can never remember who were Goneril and Regan in any given production. Same is true with Polonius and Claudius. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 14, 2016 9:54:09 GMT
Also Deborah Warner is an uncompromising director, not inclined to "make it more accessible" with big cuts - I think a 3:30 running time for Lear is still cut though, probably 3:45 for the full text. I saw Warner's last King Lear which was with Brian Cox, it wasn't her best work so that is presumably why she's having another go I seem to recall she'd done one before with Kick theatre too. I enjoyed the Cox one, though i seem to recall Cox putting a Red Nose Day red nose on the dead Cornelia's nose, which struck me as a terrible directorial decision. McKellen was Kent, of course, very impressive; and it was presumably a very fine cast, though I've seen so many I can never remember who were Goneril and Regan in any given production. Same is true with Polonius and Claudius. Yes she had done it with Kick before so this will be her third. Her NT production was cross-cast with the McKellen Ricard III. I thought McKellen was somewhat miscast as Kent but David Bradley was almost definitively good as the Fool. The red nose thing was just hinting at the familiar suggestion that in Shakespeare's day Cordelia and Fool would have been played by the same actor - I've never seen that explicitly done even though having a female Fool has been quite common. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2016 10:00:50 GMT
I know it's frightfully childish of me but I do always have to stifle a snigger when someone mentions Goneril in 'Lear'.
"Oh Your Majesty, I don't know where your daughter is. She was out with the troops last night and I think she's gone and caught herself a particularly itchy case of goneril."
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Post by profquatermass on Oct 14, 2016 10:23:04 GMT
Ah, I'd forgotten it was Deborah Warner. If I recall correctly the Barbican had to move the start time of her Julius Caesar due to the run time, and possibly the same for her version of School for Scandal (which was well over 3 hours). Makes it even odder that they didn't realise this from the start. Actually I'm pretty sure that not only did they not change the start time but it was actually 7.45 (for a four hour show). Ludicrous for anyone travelling further than Zone 1 |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2016 10:51:23 GMT
Actually I'm pretty sure that not only did they not change the start time but it was actually 7.45 (for a four hour show). Ludicrous for anyone travelling further than Zone 1 That would have given people some time to eat something beforehand. Very long operas start early (say at 5.00pm) and have a 50 minute interval (giving the performers a break and everyone time for a snack) before concluding around 11.00. But that wouldn't work for most drama because such a long interval would seriously disrupt the play, and too few people would be free to show up for a 5.00pm start. A 7.00 start is awkwardly early for many people, and definitely too early for others to be able to commit to attending. With a long performance, you can't suit everyone! |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2016 11:16:53 GMT
I attended an already long ENO opera (Don Carlos) with an unforeseen long interval for a bomb scare in the days when the IRA was regularly active in London. About half the audience hung around the theatre, despite having been advised to leave the area, and returned to our seats when the theatre had been checked for incendiary devices. As there are several versions of Don Carlos, we were then informed that the performance would be switched to one of the shorter ones, so it ended not much later than the time originally planned. Not an option with most drama!
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Post by profquatermass on Oct 14, 2016 11:20:28 GMT
Actually I'm pretty sure that not only did they not change the start time but it was actually 7.45 (for a four hour show). Ludicrous for anyone travelling further than Zone 1 That would have given people some time to eat something beforehand. Very long operas start early (say at 5.00pm) and have a 50 minute interval (giving the performers a break and everyone time for a snack) before concluding around 11.00. But that wouldn't work for most drama because such a long interval would seriously disrupt the play, and too few people would be free to show up for a 5.00pm start. A 7.00 start is awkwardly early for many people, and definitely too early for others to be able to commit to attending. With a long performance, you can't suit everyone! I suspect more people can turn up at 7.00 than can get home easily at midnight |
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