The Maids, Trafalgar Studios

[Deleted]

I must say the new promo for this looks great.

The £15 tickets deal appeals greatly, and I've heard wonderful things about Uzo Aduba too.

[Deleted]

Originally I was only going for Uzo, but the promos do look great!

I love Uzo in OITNB and she was stunning in The Wiz, so I can't wait to see her in a play on the West End, and also to see the show, as it sounds really interesting.

[Deleted]

If you haven't booked yet, be warned there's a weekend at the end of March when Uzo won't be appearing. I know the other cast members are great, but I've already seen them in plays, I'm looking forward to ticking off someone new who I already know is terrific.

[mrbarnaby]

What is the £15 deal? The adverts make out like its heavily booked .." Best availability from March"

[mrbarnaby]

(Not that it's far away mind!)

[Deleted]

At the beginning of each month, the Mondays go onsale with all tickets available for £15, as per every other Jamie Lloyd Trafalgar Studios production for the last few years.

[couldileaveyou]

Feb 13, 2016 23:26:17 GMT @baemax said:

If you haven't booked yet, be warned there's a weekend at the end of March when Uzo won't be appearing. I know the other cast members are great, but I've already seen them in plays, I'm looking forward to ticking off someone new who I already know is terrific.

Zawe Ashton will not performr 17th and 18th March; Uzu Aduba will not perform 25th and 26th March.

I'm going on Monday, I can't wait! Is anyone going tonight?

[Marwood]

I'm going on Wednesday.

[theinvisiblegirl]

Can anyone give me any idea as to what the stage seats are like in this theatre?

[Deleted]

Awaiting the violence/gore reports on this one, people! (I don't know the play at all, but from what I've read it appears there is potential for it...)

[Deleted]

Feb 22, 2016 18:17:00 GMT theinvisiblegirl said:

Can anyone give me any idea as to what the stage seats are like in this theatre?

I saw a picture of the stage on Instagram... by the looks of it the stage is a somewhat in the round setup, square stage, small, lots of flowers covering the stage floor, no set.

Will try to find the photo...

[Deleted]

Here is a picture of the set...

websta.me/p/1189400615100368569_1156273088

[couldileaveyou]

I saw it tonight and it was a mixed bag for me. The play is surely clever and interesting, but every now and then is just too verbose. The cast is very good, Uzo is brilliant (her last speech is breath-taking) but occasionally she seems to slip into her "Orange is the New Black" character: very, very good, but nothing new. Lady Edith is good - great American accent! - and I felt like the play didn't really started until she came in (a long way into the play, tbh): her scene is short but crucial. Zawe Ashton steals the show, for me.

The direction is meh, some times it fits the moment perfectly and some times it's just tacky; same about the lights. Beautiful set, full of hidden trapdoor. And boy, Jamie Lloyd really likes his confetti.

It's not really a violent play - it's not Cleansed - it's more psychologically violent. I wish there were more elegant terms to describe it, but for me it's a mixed bag.

[Marwood]

Thanks for that - what was the running time (roughly)?

[couldileaveyou]

uhm, they say 1h45m, but it was longer - almost two hours (considering that it started a few minutes late. Oh, and there is no interval).

[Deleted]

Any opinions on the quality of the on-stage seating?

[couldileaveyou]

they look great, it's nothing like "Farinelli and the King". They're not even on stage, they basically made the show on the round, putting a few rows of seats behind the performing space... something like "The Crucible" at the Old Vic.

[theinvisiblegirl]

Feb 22, 2016 21:48:27 GMT danieljohnson14 said:

Here is a picture of the set...

websta.me/p/1189400615100368569_1156273088

Thank you. Really tempted to go for the front row of the stage seats.

[Marwood]

Interview with Jamie Lloyd on The Guardians website (brief mention of Doctor Faustus too): link

[DebbieDoesDouglas(Hodge)]

It disappoints me that he isn't a homo. Doesn't bother me that he's an AWFUL director.

[Marwood]

Saw this last night, and like couldileaveyou, I'm in two minds about this - I thought Uzo was great, she tore into her lines with gusto (getting away with some Tod Slaughteresque levels of scenery chewing at points, excused on the part of the playacting involved) while having great fun doing so, Zawe and Laura were pretty good too, but overall I thought it was too long (not helped by the seating, I've been to Trafalgar Studios before and had no problems, but the seat this time was killing my back after half an hour or so, an interval would have been a blessed welcome), it could easily have done with a good 15-20 minutes being chopped out of it and I didn't really understand just WHY Solange and Claire wanted to kill Mistress, OK she was a self centred little madame, but I thought she came across as more of a vacuous Paris Hilton wannabe than a Cruella DeVille who kept them in squalor/chains. I was moved by the final scene between Uzo and Zawe, but came away feeling a fit ambivalent about how things turned out in the end (maybe because the ending was totally what I wasn't expecting after reading the press releases and interviews prior to seeing this).

Staging was minimal, it looked like Jamie Lloyd based the set on A View From The Bridge, basically four posts at the corner of the 'room' and a lot of confetti/'flowers' on the floor, and a roof with some flashing lights in it. I quite liked the sound design, mostly a looped bit of electro that came and went throughout the play without over doing things.

One word of warning if you go for stage seats - A) the majority of the time, you'll be watching the back of the people on stage, and B) don't go for the seats at the extreme ends of the rows, from where I was sat (row B of the front stalls), it looked like the curtains (and the posts) blocked off a fair bit of the stage and the people sitting there didn't get to see much.

[Jonnyboy]

I bought the extreme end of front row stage seats the other day... I wonder if it's worth exchanging them for more central, further back ones??

Poor of them not to be classed as restricted view if this is the case.

[theinvisiblegirl]

Thanks Marwood I held off booking stage seats for that reason. I think I'll give them a miss if it's not really played towards those seats at all.

[couldileaveyou]

The seats at Trafalgar Studios are a true nightmare, I feel pity and horror for those who will sit near Mark Shenton on opening night

[Jonnyboy]

Feb 25, 2016 17:33:14 GMT couldileaveyou said:

Those seats are really awful, I feel pity and horror for those who will sit near Mark Shenton on opening night

?? You said the stage seats looked good a few posts back!