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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2018 23:36:19 GMT
Saw this tonight. It had a handful of moments that felt like there was something decent lurking in the text but it just didn’t all hang together very well. Liked Poots, Norton was OK. It lacked any atmosphere Which was the downfall for me Like Almeida and Twilight And Hampstead and Cell Mates This is a weird choice to programme Over festive holiday period All these plays are devoid of any entertainment |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2018 23:37:44 GMT
Thought this was a pile of sh*t Zero tension Or Excitement Stupid plot No interval to leave in Yep. Pretty damn disappointing. Wonder if the Donmar chose it or Norton got to pick it? I liked Bug But again it was all about Kate Fleetwood And her crazed partner/ex husband I forget which Norton was very much the background |
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Post by demelza on Jan 7, 2018 1:47:25 GMT
Saw Belleville this afternoon with a friend. Went in not really knowing much about the plot but we both enjoyed it well enough although to be fair, James Norton could read the yellow pages and I'd be entertained!
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Post by mallardo on Jan 7, 2018 9:14:04 GMT
I saw it last night and liked it, a strong intelligent piece with credible characters and a steady drip of revelations that kept me intrigued. Norton and Poots are both tremendous, Poots especially, an amazing instinctual actress always vividly in the moment. This is only her second stage role (after Virginia Woolf) yet what a natural creature of the stage she is.
Norton has, in some ways, the more difficult role - and he is cast against type. Zack, as written, would seem to be, let's say, a less physical guy. He's the furtive type, a liar constantly juggling stories and being caught out. But Norton, to his great credit, finds the truth in him and he plays those what-do-I-do-now moments brilliantly.
I also liked the second couple, Malachi Kirby and Faith Alabi. Their final scene, if something of a anti-climax, felt absolutely necessary to the resolution of the play.
Robert Longhurst's staging gets it just right, particularly in the intense action moments played on a knife edge (so to speak), chaotic but controlled. And Tom Scutt's set is perfection.
Yeah, I enjoyed it.
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Post by lynette on Jan 13, 2018 22:21:54 GMT
I enjoyed it too if enjoy is the right word here. I liked the guess work, what is going on here? Not difficult to come up with the answers but it was nicely done. Good acting, from all four of them. I can 7nderstwnd why some people as above didn’t like it. How anyone can say nothing happens I don’t know. Plenty happens. I think if you were going to study American drama you might be tempted to include this as counterpoint and update to Virginia Woolf and others.
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Post by nialld on Jan 15, 2018 13:30:43 GMT
Did anyone get standing tickets for this production? Didn't get any Klaxon tickets this afternoon so think that might be my only option, just wanted to see if people thought they were worth it?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 15:06:07 GMT
Worth a go I think if you're OK to stand for 90 minutes - you should get a good view, and if there are any spare seats just before the show starts the ushers usually upgrade standing people to the vacant seats. I've seen this happen even at supposedly sold-out performances. So worst case scenario, you have to stand, best case scenario, you've paid £10 for a top-price stalls seat  |
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Post by mrbarnaby on Jan 15, 2018 22:07:14 GMT
What a load of rubbish this was.
Awful play
Awful set
James Norton displaying no charisma at all. Anyone placing bets on him being the next Bond should see this and then that’ll stop them.
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Post by lynette on Jan 18, 2018 22:40:12 GMT
Not only was the nude scene surplus to requirements tho she was shlepped out of the bath...it didn’t make sense to me that she bothered to cover up in her own home. Most would just stay naked, no?
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Post by katurian on Jan 18, 2018 22:48:55 GMT
Agree with theatremonkey about the performances being better than the play. Imogen Poots particularly has a fantastic sparking presence that makes her character seem more interesting than she is for much of it (and later, lifts her from being a flakey cliche). In fact the very first scene with her and the neighbour is, unfortunately, the best in the play, because she feels the most vivid and interesting as a character, with the script promising much. All the stuff with the father and the sister, I kept expecting it to add up to more, even at one point wondering if it would turn out neither existed or something (I mean, it wouldn't have been a stretch with the other melodrama going on!) but... I feel I just didn't get it, or more that there wasn't much to it to get. I also agree with the problem of backstory revelations rather than development. It's very odd, in that a lot of the potential developments that are set up seem forgotten or thrown away in the end. Eg, the toe scene! In the end, it doesn't impact anything, it doesn't set off a chain of events or signal anything about the character we didn't already know, and she's very drunk at the time, anyway. The next time we see her, her foot is bandaged and... it's never referred to again. Much like the nudity, it feels thrown in for the shock value and not for any particular development of character or point. Or the baby monitor being left behind to... no real consequence at all. To me the script is the root of the problem. It focuses on two main characters who don't make sense, whose situation doesn't really make sense, and who descend into histrionics it's hard to care about. There's something about it that feels quite dated. Like if I'd been told it was 30+ years old I'd probably go 'oh, that explains a lot'. I found the performances/production engaging enough, but overall it didn't do anything for me. |
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Post by mallardo on Jan 18, 2018 23:23:53 GMT
The nudity - such as it is - is motivated. She's dragged from a bath after having the bathroom door broken down and struggles to cover herself up because she's basically being assaulted by her husband - or so it must seem to her. Nothing gratuitous about it.
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Post by bellboard27 on Jan 19, 2018 10:52:16 GMT
to cover herself up because she's basically being assaulted by her husband Ah, I took it another way, that the door was being broken down out of concern for her welfare, and that his handling of her should have involved wrapping her in something to keep her warm as he rescued her. Hence she should have left the bathroom wrapped in a towel at the least. I pondered this for a while and agree with Monkey. While the nudity is perfectly in keeping with the story, if he had emerged from the bathroom carrying her in a towel it would also be consistent and have had no impact on the story. I sat centre of front row of the circle and got a very clear view! Pleasant enough though that was, I wondered if it was necessary.
As an aside, I saw this right at the start of previews and given that the issue of nudity had not been raised in this thread until very recently (yet Norton's shirt coming off had!), I had begun to wonder if the production had changed. Cleary not!
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Post by mallardo on Jan 19, 2018 10:53:13 GMT
to cover herself up because she's basically being assaulted by her husband Ah, I took it another way, that the door was being broken down out of concern for her welfare, and that his handling of her should have involved wrapping her in something to keep her warm as he rescued her. Hence she should have left the bathroom wrapped in a towel at the least.
Yes, but his concern came in the form of a commando raid on the bathtub - her shocked response was to struggle and he couldn't wrap her up. It all played for me and, in fact, I thought it was well staged to protect whatever modesty was available to her under the circumstances.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 11:02:36 GMT
I think the nudity was completely gratuitous personally.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 11:10:41 GMT
^Who the hell are you and what have you done with @ryan ? Ha! I know! I'm saying it and even I don't believe it! I'm very disappointed that the director chose to make Mr Norton stop at the shirt though. Jolly bad form. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 11:22:25 GMT
^Who the hell are you and what have you done with @ryan ? Ha! I know! I'm saying it and even I don't believe it! I'm very disappointed that the director chose to make Mr Norton stop at the shirt though. Jolly bad form. I mean equal opportunities and all...
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Post by mallardo on Jan 19, 2018 11:22:34 GMT
Ah, she didn't appear to struggle yesterday, and his "raid" seemed to just be his way of getting through the door. Maybe something was hidden from the angle I saw it from (low numbers side stalls). I think she was very exposed to the other side of the side stalls at one point, and to the rest pretty much until she got the towel on. It just seemed too much.
Struggle may be too strong a word but her body was clenched and resisting and the whole thing took maybe ten seconds before the towel covered her. I'll say again, it was staged to give her as much cover as possible - considering she was nude. And I don't see how it can be called gratuitous given its context in the play.
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Post by mallardo on Jan 19, 2018 12:39:07 GMT
The action you're talking about, TM, could never have been onstage. I think the playwright got it right.
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Post by jadnoop on Jan 19, 2018 13:05:25 GMT
It's interesting to hear the different views regarding the play's nudity. For me, I'm not sure that it was necessary, or 'logical' in terms of the characters' actions (I have no idea how people might act in situations like that). However, I found the scene shocking and matter-of-fact in a way that nudity on stage & film that I've seen so often isn't.
While it's true that the key event immedaitely prior happened off-stage, many of the play's key points did. While I don't necessarily agree that it would have been impossible to have had the scene on stage, it would have been a fundamentally different play.
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Post by lynette on Jan 19, 2018 13:19:39 GMT
The baby monitor thing is important because I felt right from the start that she had wanted a baby, hence her annoyance at what her husband was doing when she got home ..ahem. He obviously hadn't for all sorts of reasons which became clear, her fragile mental state, his problem.. and the baby crying noises were grotesquely what she wanted..as it were. Poorly expressed I know.
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Post by mallardo on Jan 19, 2018 13:24:51 GMT
The action you're talking about, TM, could never have been onstage it would have been a fundamentally different play Unless in that sense, with which I agree.
Yes, that sense. At last we can agree!!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2018 15:18:35 GMT
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Post by cyport on Jan 30, 2018 9:32:11 GMT
Hi everyone, first post! I went to see this last night. I didn't think much of the play but I liked the natural tension that built up gradually. Imogen Poots was excellent and James Norton played well I thought. Had to laugh when the woman next to us was confused by the ending scene.
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Post by lynette on Jan 30, 2018 18:26:05 GMT
Hi, welcome to the Board, cyport.
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Post by vdcni on Feb 3, 2018 19:15:57 GMT
Wasn't particularly keen on this. Well acted for the most part but it drifted along in the middle and I felt my attention wander.
The Zack character didn't seem charming or cunning enough to have kept the pretence up all this time and really Poots kept the whole thing going until the final scenes which, at last, had some force and passion about them.
If it had a wider point than, hey here are some unhealthy people in an unhealthy relationship then it passed me by.
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