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Post by bordeaux on Jan 15, 2018 11:48:10 GMT
I'm not sure the word 'elitist' is helpful as it means different things to different people. Both Pinter and Stoppard have written works which are hard to understand in ways that, say, a David Hare or Alan Bennett play aren't. Pinter's plays can be oblique; you are sometimes not sure who the characters are, what their relationship is, whether they are real, what they are talking about. Mysteries are not cleared up, there is often no plot, things are left hanging; the world on stage bears some relation to the real world but it's not wholly recognisable. That makes some of them difficult, but is difficulty the same as elitist? Some of Stoppard's plays are hard to understand if you don't have the requisite general knowledge, though some exaggerate the difficulty in my view; you can still enjoy them without getting every allusion (like Shakespeare). I agree Travesties contains a lot of references to things not everyone knows about, but Arcadia actually teaches you about the difficult stuff you need to understand to get the play. Far from being elitist, it is showing us that difficult concepts can be understood by a lot of people.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 13:53:35 GMT
I'm not sure the word 'elitist' is helpful as it means different things to different people. Both Pinter and Stoppard have written works which are hard to understand in ways that, say, a David Hare or Alan Bennett play aren't. Pinter's plays can be oblique; you are sometimes not sure who the characters are, what their relationship is, whether they are real, what they are talking about. Mysteries are not cleared up, there is often no plot, things are left hanging; the world on stage bears some relation to the real world but it's not wholly recognisable. That makes some of them difficult, but is difficulty the same as elitist? Some of Stoppard's plays are hard to understand if you don't have the requisite general knowledge, though some exaggerate the difficulty in my view; you can still enjoy them without getting every allusion (like Shakespeare). I agree Travesties contains a lot of references to things not everyone knows about, but Arcadia actually teaches you about the difficult stuff you need to understand to get the play. Far from being elitist, it is showing us that difficult concepts can be understood by a lot of people. I read an interview once where Stoppard said that people think of him as clever, but that he only learns stuff for the plays and that once he's written them he forgets all the information, which means that there is a possibility that he might one day encounter one of his own plays and not have an iota of a clue of what it's going on about. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 14:56:14 GMT
^ Well I’m sure there would be plenty of bullsh*tters lining up to explain them all to him...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 15:02:22 GMT
I've honestly never found Stoppard that oblique, and I wouldn't say I've got a broad base of knowledge either. Granted, I've not seen all of his plays, but the ones I have seen, the subjects he's covered never stand in the way of the plays themselves. They don't all beautifully explain things like Arcadia does, but I coped with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before I ever saw Hamlet, and Travesties with only the vaguest knowledge of Dadaism, and The Real Thing, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Hard Problem, etc. In fairness Hapgood was pretty rubbish, but I didn't feel blocked out, just bored.
Pinter is in many ways Stoppard's opposite - although Stoppard could be alienating with his subject matter, I've never felt left behind, whereas Pinter writes plays about probably very straight-forward things, but I always feel like I'm struggling to keep up.
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Post by joem on Jan 16, 2018 22:40:10 GMT
Not getting involved in Pinter v Stoppard here as this is a production thread.
This is a good production of what is now a classic play. I have been quoting lines from The Birthday Party for decades without ever having seen it on stage so this was definitely a landmark moment for me. Like Alexander I will now have to sit and weep having no new Pinters to conquer.
It is about as Pinteresque a play as you can get: wordplay, menace, characters of mysterious origin, absurd interludes, informed monologues or speeches, humour... it's all there. If you watch this expecting a straight play (even after 60 years some people, oddly, still do) then you're going to end up pretty confused. I love the language of Pinter, the way he finds poetry in the most mundane speech patterns, the way he finds comedy in the use and misuse of language.
I thought the casting for this was wrong when I first learnt of it and I don't think I was wrong. Meg (Zoe Wanamaker), the landlady of the sleepy seaside boarding-house is supposed to be thirty years older than the guest Stanley (Toby Jones). It is an inappropriate, ridiculous probably one-sided affair - with the younger man using this to this advantage. This age-gap doesn't work with Jones and Wanamaker
Add to this that Goldberg (Stephen Mangan) is supposed to be the dominant character in the play, with a faux avuncular persona and you wonder why the director simply didn't switch Jones and Mangan. Would make sense to me.
Despite this, the production moves at a cracking pace. As you would expect, it is funnier on stage than on film but the effect this has to to detract somewhat from the pathos of the denouement.
Zoe Wanamaker wrings every drop of humour as the daft landlady, Toby Jones is esepcially impressive after his "transformation". It's a strong cast and it delivers.
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Post by mallardo on Jan 17, 2018 11:51:27 GMT
Yes, Toby Jones seems miscast as Stanley - the fact that he and Zoe Wanamaker's landlady, Meg, are about the same age means that her delusional flirtatiousness plays in a different context. But, that said, both actors are so strong and convincing in their roles that their odd relationship still works.
On the other hand, Stephen Mangan's Goldberg is a revelation. No, he's not the avuncular type one usually gets in the role. He's a tall powerful man at the peak of his powers, looming over everyone else, overwhelming them with his charisma and dominating them - and the play. Always smiling, speaking in a raconteur's measured tones, oozing what passes for charm as he feeds us his endless stories and reminiscences which may or may not contain granules of truth, he's a performer doing his routine and all the more ominous and threatening because of it. His double act with his agitated, slightly deranged Irish henchman, McCann (a wonderful Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) works like a dream - they're a perfect match for each other, at the same time the source of most of the play's humour and all of its dark menace.
But the entire cast - not forgetting Peter Wight's solid Petey and Pearl Mackie's vivacious Lulu - are excellent and Ian Rickson's production is spot on. He allows the play to unfold on its own terms, never forcing the issue as some recent Pinter productions (thinking of Jamie Lloyd's overheated The Homecoming, primarily) have done.
The Birthday Party is maybe the most accessible of all of Pinter's plays. No, we don't really know who these people are - their back stories are bogus - or what exactly brought them together but we know enough and we can infer the rest. As always, Pinter takes an oblique approach but there are no hidden meanings. He's not a playwright of ideas but of situations amenable to conflict and in that regard this is one of his strongest and clearest works. Great theatre.
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Post by crowblack on Jan 17, 2018 13:12:30 GMT
he and Zoe Wanamaker's landlady, Meg, are about the same age means She's 68, he's 51 - but she looks younger than that, and he does look older! |
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Post by jadnoop on Jan 17, 2018 13:17:35 GMT
I thought the casting for this was wrong when I first learnt of it and I don't think I was wrong. Meg (Zoe Wanamaker), the landlady of the sleepy seaside boarding-house is supposed to be thirty years older than the guest Stanley (Toby Jones). It is an inappropriate, ridiculous probably one-sided affair - with the younger man using this to this advantage. This age-gap doesn't work with Jones and Wanamaker It's interesting that you say that. I haven't read the play, and didn't know it before going, so didn't realise that they were supposed to be so different in age. However, while I was there, I got the feeling that the casting amplified the weirdness/inappropriateness of another side of their relationship. My feeling (and again, I haven't read the text so may be misreading things) was that Meg & Stanley's dynamic flitted between two things (a) two lovers, where he didn't really like her, and (b) as a quasi-mother-son thing, where he was a petulant child. The latter seemed loudest in some of her lines and the way she seemed to dote on him (e.g. her saying something like "Not a girl, it's better to have a boy."). The fact that Toby Jones is so clearly not a child, and didn't seem too different in age from Zoe Wanamaker (especially compared with Peter Wright) amplified the weirdness of their uncertain relationship, as well as the absurdity & nervousness of the drum scene. All in all, I felt that Toby Jones was amazing. His physicality worked well, especially in his scenes with Stephen Mangan. And his transformation for the final scene as well as *that* brief moment of lighting in the dark were fantastic. |
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Post by dave72 on Jan 17, 2018 13:35:25 GMT
For what it's worth, I thought Toby Jones was extraordinary too. In my view, it's important not to get bogged down in the details as specified in the text: for me, the only really useful question is whether the choices made in the production are effective. And in this case, the Meg/Stanley relationship absolutely did work in its own terms. Here's a very thoughtful interview with Peter Wight that may be useful for those who are struggling to come to terms with the play: www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/BWW-Interview-Peter-Wight-Talks-THE-BIRTHDAY-PARTY-20180117 |
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Post by joem on Jan 17, 2018 19:49:29 GMT
I thought the casting for this was wrong when I first learnt of it and I don't think I was wrong. Meg (Zoe Wanamaker), the landlady of the sleepy seaside boarding-house is supposed to be thirty years older than the guest Stanley (Toby Jones). It is an inappropriate, ridiculous probably one-sided affair - with the younger man using this to this advantage. This age-gap doesn't work with Jones and Wanamaker It's interesting that you say that. I haven't read the play, and didn't know it before going, so didn't realise that they were supposed to be so different in age. However, while I was there, I got the feeling that the casting amplified the weirdness/inappropriateness of another side of their relationship. My feeling (and again, I haven't read the text so may be misreading things) was that Meg & Stanley's dynamic flitted between two things (a) two lovers, where he didn't really like her, and (b) as a quasi-mother-son thing, where he was a petulant child. The latter seemed loudest in some of her lines and the way she seemed to dote on him (e.g. her saying something like "Not a girl, it's better to have a boy."). The fact that Toby Jones is so clearly not a child, and didn't seem too different in age from Zoe Wanamaker (especially compared with Peter Wright) amplified the weirdness of their uncertain relationship, as well as the absurdity & nervousness of the drum scene. All in all, I felt that Toby Jones was amazing. His physicality worked well, especially in his scenes with Stephen Mangan. And his transformation for the final scene as well as *that* brief moment of lighting in the dark were fantastic.There is a suggestion, which perhaps I'd missed before last night, that the relationship might actually have been consummated (I used to think it was all in her mind) when she remarks, to Stanley, on the "many nice afternoons" she's had in one of the bedrooms. But then again it is Meg speaking and might have been wishful thinking.The mother-son thing is definitely there - Pinter is no stranger to incestuous suggestiveness - reinforced when she says wistfully she would rather have had a boy than a girl. She is presumably childless. But jury out whether they are or have been lovers. Still think the age gap was toned down and that has an effect. |
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Post by peggs on Jan 17, 2018 22:19:43 GMT
Just out from this, sat behind pillar in row o until could move sideways after interval. I think I some what relax with pinter as I don't expect to necessarily get it all. It was funny with that ever looming menace and some wonderful acting, loved the physicality of toby Jones and some playing against type. I knew I could cone on here and have a bit more to make me think a bit more and the discussions around this play and Pinter in general are both enlightening and thought provoking. Not understanding would have frustrated me once but it's no longer vital for my enjoyment.
Could have cheerfully slapped the person who felt the need to light up their phone at quite the wrong moment.
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Post by Stephen on Jan 17, 2018 22:46:42 GMT
Also there tonight with great front row seats. Thought cast were excellent with Toby Jones and Zoë Wannamaker really shining! Great theatre!
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Post by callum on Jan 17, 2018 22:58:22 GMT
Shame to have missed you Steve - I was front row too! Excellent seats and an excellent show. By no means should it be anyone's first ever play they go and see, but it was an amusing, compelling, creepy evening. All of the cast at the top of their game - particularly Zoe Wanamaker and Toby Jones. Thought Peter Wight did well too. The fact that the fire exit lights were turned out during 'that' sequence was a brilliant touch. It was very intense. And I think, on reflection, that's what the play is about - Pinter's sparseness with exposition, background and setting allows him to drive through an intensity and (sometimes humorous) creepiness in their place. Definitely recommended.
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Post by Stephen on Jan 17, 2018 23:13:06 GMT
Shame to have missed you Steve - I was front row too! Excellent seats and an excellent show. By no means should it be anyone's first ever play they go and see, but it was an amusing, compelling, creepy evening. All of the cast at the top of their game - particularly Zoe Wanamaker and Toby Jones. Thought Peter Wight did well too. The fact that the fire exit lights were turned out during 'that' sequence was a brilliant touch. It was very intense. And I think, on reflection, that's what the play is about - Pinter's sparseness with exposition, background and setting allows him to drive through an intensity and (sometimes humorous) creepiness in their place. Definitely recommended. I agree. The complete blackouts were perfect! I also liked the notices about not eating in the theatre. Had my friend not bought me gins I'd not have drank either! Were you on your own Callum? If so you may have been sitting beside me! |
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Post by callum on Jan 17, 2018 23:16:51 GMT
Shame to have missed you Steve - I was front row too! Excellent seats and an excellent show. By no means should it be anyone's first ever play they go and see, but it was an amusing, compelling, creepy evening. All of the cast at the top of their game - particularly Zoe Wanamaker and Toby Jones. Thought Peter Wight did well too. The fact that the fire exit lights were turned out during 'that' sequence was a brilliant touch. It was very intense. And I think, on reflection, that's what the play is about - Pinter's sparseness with exposition, background and setting allows him to drive through an intensity and (sometimes humorous) creepiness in their place. Definitely recommended. I agree. The complete blackouts were perfect! I also liked the notices about not eating in the theatre. Had my friend not bought me gins I'd not have drank either! Were you on your own Callum? If so you may have been sitting beside me! Yes I was! A7! Though I think there were a few solos in tonight. |
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Post by Stephen on Jan 17, 2018 23:19:06 GMT
Ah it wasn't I. Alas I was in A13. Must recommend the front row for this play also. There is very little missed as the stage is fairly low and the closeness makes the atmosphere even more palpable!
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Post by Steve on Jan 17, 2018 23:23:35 GMT
And I was there tonight as well (treated myself to Row E, as Toby Jones appearances are always something special), and I loved it also. It's all been said above, basically, about the menace of the play, and the humour, the how the elusiveness of facts magnifies both the menace and the humour. It's also been alluded to above what unsettling, weird and wonderful dominant/submissive double acts we have in Mangan/Vaughan-Lawlor, and in Jones/Wanamaker. I would add that I love the sense of normalcy that Peter Wight and Pearl Mackie bring to this zany cocktail. Some spoilers follow. . . If I could add just one thing to these near perfect performances, it would be that in the few scenes where Mangan drops his delightful and unnerving, sarcastically superficial charm, that he escalate the threat and menace of those moments. I think comedians, like Mangan, make terrific villains, and it just takes one moment of unguarded psychopathy to really spark that dyanamic. When David Walliams (another comedian playing a menacing character in a Pinter play) was in "No Man's Land," I really felt threatened by him, at moments, and I'd love for Mangan to achieve that level of threat too. He is so close to perfection! This play is as alive today as 60 years ago. For me, Wanamaker's Meg is like "the forgotten man" of America, flirting with wolves at the door, obliviously giving away the freedoms of everybody, in exchange for the cheap and easy seductive attention of psychopaths. No doubt Meg would have voted for Trump, and if he were alive today, righteously furious man that he was, Pinter would have throttled her just as Toby Jones' Stanley feels impelled to do. Zoe Wanamaker really gives a career defining performance in this show! 4 stars.  |
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Post by peggs on Jan 17, 2018 23:48:08 GMT
Oh lots of us out then, didn't venture out in interval as too busy staring at empty seat along from me. You did well not to slum it back with the rest of us, around me were lots of glasses chinkers and that wretched illuminating phone in yes that moment.
Still one of those plays I would like to sort of linger over and think about instead of running for train which slightly distracts me with my unfitness. I agree and have awarded 4 *.
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Post by Stephen on Jan 18, 2018 0:04:36 GMT
I agree with the comment on Zoë Wanamaker giving a career defining performance. At the closing of the play she was so in the action and herself that she struggled to come back to reality in the bows. To add to that haunting ending was the superb 'to blackout' lighting design that made her literally vanish as if a ghost.
I could sit through it all again right now. 5* from me.
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Post by mallardo on Jan 18, 2018 8:55:20 GMT
There's a quote from Pinter in the programme that I thought was especially telling:
"A character on the stage who can present no convincing argument or information as to his past experience, his present behaviour or his aspirations, nor give a comprehensive analysis of his motives, is as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, alarmingly, can do all of these things. The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression."
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Post by lynette on Jan 18, 2018 14:54:42 GMT
Well that is interesting, not only for the content of the comment but also because Pinter notoriously didn’t like essays of analysis in the programmes for his plays.
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Post by joem on Jan 18, 2018 21:55:02 GMT
I thought the weasel under the cocktail cabinet was excellent too.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2018 22:00:08 GMT
I thought the weasel under the cocktail cabinet was excellent too. hahaha haven't heard anything about that weasel for decades. Can you refresh my memory. I can't remember what Pinter said about it. |
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Post by joem on Jan 18, 2018 22:04:37 GMT
I thought the weasel under the cocktail cabinet was excellent too. hahaha haven't heard anything about that weasel for decades. Can you refresh my memory. I can't remember what Pinter said about it. I love the weasel. It was his half-jesting response to someone asking what his plays were about. He later claimed to be embarrassed about it but, frankly, I think it is a very good dramatic definition of what they are about - the dark forces lurking beneath the ordinary and the mundane. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 20, 2018 23:25:12 GMT
This play certainly didn’t divide London critics, after receiving praise out of town, the in town critics hated it, with the Evening Standard critic opined that “like trying to solve a crossword puzzle, where every vertical clue is designed to put you off the horizontal”, this could be more pertinently aimed more at Tom Stoppard. This was Pinter’s second play and no one understood Pinter at the time, boy have they since recanted, critics have written books on him, students have done PhD thesis on him, so really not a bad second play, that only ran 8 performances is it then?
A wonderful acted play and I enjoyed all 6 actors for different reasons and each one of them I have taken something away form the Pinter Theatre and trying to fill in the grey areas still, as that is what Pinter does so well and leaves things unexplained, he certainly likes to set you some homework, maybe I need to see it again.
Seeing the play and I hadn’t read the play and only knew 2 of the cast, naturally after reading the bios I have seen the cast in other things, however the play reeked of Sonia Friedman, maybe reeked is the wrong word, maybe strongly scented would be a better choice.
As for me I enjoyed it, exercises that grey matter. Certain parts of it, had me scratching my head, but I am sure that is what Pinter would have wanted. Where the author only allows you to come up for breathe sporadically, other than that you have to be good at holding your breathe, or you will drown like the London critics did.
4 Stars
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