RSC 2018

[martin1965]

Sept 13, 2017 9:05:48 GMT tributary said:

Another woeful announcement. A revival of their mothballed nepotistic King Lear and packed around it, Britain's weakest female directors. Polly Findlay? Maria Aberg? Jo Davies? Erica Whyman? None of them have ever delivered a decent show. The Arts Council of Great Britain should put the RSC out of our misery.

Not a fan then?😂

[David J]

Again I defend Maria Aberg's As You Like It as one of the most joyous productions I've seen in the past few years. Funny that it was on just before Gregory Doran took over. Feels like it marked the end of an era at the RSC.

But yeah, otherwise it feels like Maria Aberg got lucky with that production and has never lived up it since.

[cirque]

true.

Do you think RSC is converting the target young audience though.....are they now flocking to Stratford out of school time..?

They seem to think they are,so,if thats now the stated aim it seems to be fine.

So much for Greg saying....I will put SHAKESPEARE back into RSC.

[Jan]

Sept 13, 2017 9:05:48 GMT tributary said:

Another woeful announcement. A revival of their mothballed nepotistic King Lear and packed around it, Britain's weakest female directors. Polly Findlay? Maria Aberg? Jo Davies? Erica Whyman? None of them have ever delivered a decent show. The Arts Council of Great Britain should put the RSC out of our misery.

I thought the Findlay/Ecclestone "Antigone" at NT was excellent. Agree on Aberg, she should never have been let back in after her ridiculous "King John".

[David J]

I think a great Shakespeare production starts with the director and the cast understanding the text and conveying that to the audience.

The language barrier is after all what can turn anybody off. Before he took over Gregory Doran was actually my favourite Shakespeare director because his casts clearly what they were talking about delivering the text.

But as you say trying to make Shakespeare as accessible as possible has become the priority of the main house productions to a detriment. The Roman productions this year seemed to consist of actors delivering the lines as clearly as possible with no real feeling. It was telling when to me Andrew Woodall was one of the few who actually gave a damn playing Julius Caesar and Enobarbus.

And Andrew Jackson had been given directorship of this season and I have seen way better productions from him. Iqbal Khan as well. Okay, Gregory Doran needs some oversight but give your directors some leeway at the reins

I may sound like I prefer a different RSC era, but you also need a Shakespeare production that is creative as well as clear. You can say the same for any production really, and there's always a place for recreating Ancient Rome on stage but this is a leading Shakespeare company we're talking about here that should be encouraging new and exciting interpretations of Shakespeare, like the Almeida's Hamlet.

After 10 years going to Stratford, I am sticking to seeing the main house productions at the cinema (except perhaps the winter show). If you want creativity, see the shows in the Swan Theatre.

[Deleted]

Greg Doran seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, some say he is too hands on but when he delegates a whole season people don't seem to like it either. The artistic director's role is always a hard one to judge between the administrator and the director role especially when they have a high profile deputy as Greg has in Erica Whyman.

You could argue that Greg and Erica should direct at least one possibly two plays each every season and when two plays are due to open close together then other directors are brought in. Also at the RSC they are constrained by the plays they can present and Greg would be unlikely to revisit one his has done earlier in his term as AD.

I do wonder if maybe Greg was Assistant AD for too long before he became AD hence he had used up a lot of his fresher ideas by the time he became AD. If he had got the role when Michael Boyd did then things may have been fresher or if he had taken over earlier. Perhaps Michael was more of an Administrator and planner whilst Greg is better as a hands on director as they seemed to work well together during Michael's tenure.

Does anyone know how long Greg's contract is for as I doubt it would be open ended?

[lucky700]

Sept 13, 2017 11:13:11 GMT David J said:

Again I defend Maria Aberg's As You Like It as one of the most joyous productions I've seen in the past few years. Funny that it was on just before Gregory Doran took over. Feels like it marked the end of an era at the RSC.

But yeah, otherwise it feels like Maria Aberg got lucky with that production and has never lived up it since.

I think it was a combination of things. Right actors, play and director. I liked their King John as well mind you. But no nothing has reached the heights since. However, she has been busy with a baby or two I  recent years so probably not her first concern.

[David J]

Sept 13, 2017 16:34:04 GMT lucky700 said:

Sept 13, 2017 11:13:11 GMT David J said:

I liked their King John as well mind you.

A controversial production amongst some people on this board.

I'm with you though. In fact I'd rather see it over the 2015 Globe production, even if it was perhaps the better of two, just because it was so out of left field

[lucky700]

Sept 13, 2017 17:23:05 GMT David J said:

Sept 13, 2017 16:34:04 GMT lucky700 said:

I liked their King John as well mind you.

A controversial production amongst some people on this board.

I'm with you though. In fact I'd rather see it over the 2015 Globe production, even if it was perhaps the better of two, just because it was so out of left field

Saw that too. It was fine. Not a great play but the Aberg one was just crazy it perked  me up. The working relationship of Aberg/Waldmann/Nixon made them and particularly AYLI into what it was. How much Aberg contributed in that trifecta is unknown. I would like to see Waldmann and Nixon together in something directed by someone else. I would venture that was a special combination for all three.

[lynette]

Yeah that King John. Controversial. Or terrible. Happy to hear about her growing family.

[Jan]

Sept 13, 2017 17:57:54 GMT lynette said:

Yeah that King John. Controversial. Or terrible. Happy to hear about her growing family.

It wasn't really controversial, it was just stupid. Wasting 4 minutes having the cast sing a karaoke version of an Abba song stops the action and illuminates nothing about the play so what was the point of it ? Just camp window dressing to amuse people who didn't want to be there in the first place.

I think Doran is just old and tired and has no new ideas, the RSC has become to seem very old fashioned under his reign when they should be at the leading edge of Shakespeare interpretation. I really wish he wouldn't be so parochial and invite some distinguished foreign directors to come and shake the place up a bit. I mean why aren't the RSC on the van Hove bandwagon ?

[lynette]

But LLL and the so called LLW were bang on the money. Luscombe being a little old fashioned and crucially commercially savvy.

[lucky700]

Sept 13, 2017 21:04:15 GMT lynette said:

But LLL and the so called LLW were bang on the money. Luscombe being a little old fashioned and crucially commercially savvy.

Caught onto the Downton Abbey zeitgeist. It was a sure fire hit in that climate. If they do a Game of thrones inspired Macbeth well,  I am sure that would be endlessly successful too.

He isn't having the best of runs. A lot of what I have seen since LlL and LLL just hasn't been very interesting.

[samuelwhiskers]

I loved that King John a lot and it stayed with me, so count me in the yay camp.

[oxfordsimon]

The Doran regime seems hell bent on producing versions of the plays that can be released on DVD to supercede the BBC versions that have been selling for years.

Middle of the road. Not too challenging. Not too innovative.

Safe in many ways but dull.

It has not been a golden age.

[tributary]

Agree, oxfordsimon.

And really, Lynette, re LLL and LLW? Is that how you like your Shakespeare? Hammy, shouted, camped up just to the tipping point into panto, stripped of darkness and danger, and dressed up like a chocolate box.

I thought, in case it isn't clear, that they were unforgivably conservative and boring. The night I saw it at the Haymarket, the school party in front of me were so bored they started throwing crisps at each other.

[lynette]

Er, I like my Shakespeare all sorts of ways. LLL brought back to life a play that had been in the doldrums for generations. I had only seen one other production of it and that was RSC and with Joseph Fiennes. He was the best bit in it! I like my Shakespeare to make sense ( ergo Aberg making the Bastard in KJ a woman wasn't to my taste nor was Meckler's stick version of R&J) and I like my Shakespeare to be well, I can't think of another word right now and this one will sound pretentious - honest. So I liked RIII with Greg Hicks in Deptford and I loved Hytner's Othello which was certainly the best of that play I've seen and in my top 5 of all Sh prods. And I liked the all gal stuff at the Donmar. I also liked Brooks's MND with the red feather all those years ago. I liked that collapsing chair AYLI at the NT. I liked the Ant and Cleo just now at the RSC. I like the Henry IVs and V the film version with SRB and TH. You wanna chuck another production at me and ask if I like it? I've seen most of them.

[oxfordsimon]

LLL from that pairing was a joyous production. Far stronger than the Tennant one of a few years before.

The Much Ado, on the other hand, was one of the weakest versions I have seen on a professional stage. It was full of crass attempts at humour and lacked the real emotional heart that the play needs.

I still believe that Luscombe spent all of the rehearsal time on the first because it is the more difficult text and assumed that Much Ado would just take care of itself.

It really didn't. The Benedick gulling scene was full of pork pie gags. The Watch scenes were more painful than usual and the relationships between the classes confused. Add to that a post war setting that was ignored after the second scene and you end up with a production that was superficial. It got laughs and was held up as a success but it was still a weak version of the text.

[Deleted]

Sept 14, 2017 0:53:57 GMT oxfordsimon said:

I still believe that Luscombe spent all of the rehearsal time on the first because it is the more difficult text and assumed that Much Ado would just take care of itself.

That might possibly have been the case with the original Stratford production, but surely not with the Chichester revival?

[Jan]

Sept 13, 2017 23:19:17 GMT tributary said:

Agree, oxfordsimon.

And really, Lynette, re LLL and LLW? Is that how you like your Shakespeare? Hammy, shouted, camped up just to the tipping point into panto, stripped of darkness and danger, and dressed up like a chocolate box.

I thought, in case it isn't clear, that they were unforgivably conservative and boring. The night I saw it at the Haymarket, the school party in front of me were so bored they started throwing crisps at each other.

I liked LLL and MA in general but agree that they descended into pantomime at points (the hiding in the Xmas tree stuff), they were not the best versions of the two I have seen. 

However, I'm not sure Luscombe deserves all the praise/blame - it was Greg Doran who specified these two plays had to be done together and set either side of WW-I, that was the brief Luscombe was handed. I would have thought it was quite unusual at the RSC for a director to be told exactly what setting they have to use for a play. 

[samuelwhiskers]

I loved the chocolate box LLL and I also loved the OTT 80s King John, and I've loved productions ranging from the very traditional (Globe pre-Rice) to the very modern and radical (Joe Hill-Gibbens YV work). People like a range of stuff, it mainly depends on whether it's done well.

[Deleted]

I loved the LLL/LLW too. Not everything needs to be high class intellectual stuff. The staging was beautiful, the music was gorgeous, the chemistry between Ed Bennett and Michelle Terry was fantastic. The hammy comedy was just the right side of too far, for me, and I just found it massively enjoyable.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to some of the new stuff, especially the Eccleston Macbeth. Romeo & Juliet I can take or leave, the casting will make my decision whether to go or not.

[Jan]

Doran's decision choose Troilus and Cressida for his first go at 50/50 male/female casting seems like an odd choice, it is a play very much about a lone woman in an oppressively all-male military environment. It was a distinguished director - Peter Stein I think - who identified the key scene as being the one where Cressida arrives in the Greek camp and immediately "they all want to f*** her". Well, let's see how he casts it.

[Deleted]

Public booking opened today. Nice and painless experience!

Macbeth seems to be selling very well. The booking page for this warns "Please note that this production will emphasise the more disturbing psychological themes in Macbeth and as such may be unsuitable for a younger audience."

Only booked for that and Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich.

Judging by the page for Merry Wives of Windsor it will be a modern version inspired by The Only Way is Essex.

[macksennett]

I booked for Miss Littlewood - a great booking experience, no technical glitches. I looked at Macbeth but high ticket prices put me off - for now at least.