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Post by Nicholas on Apr 29, 2016 16:02:00 GMT
I think it may come down to how much you empathise with internalised emotional distress. If you recognise it easily in yourself, then the play will instantly hook. If it isn't something you are particularly conscious of - and a lot of people are lucky not to be - then it's a harder climb. Agree Ms Gough works very hard, and deserves her success, but I still stand by my feeling that her psychologist was the deeper performance.
Absolutely. There were things that Emma would say about the way she saw the world in its brutal, unpleasant, unforgiving, godless awfulness that chimed with me, or at least felt like a way of looking at the world I recognised. Macmillan wrote many many moments where a character described extreme joy, extreme sadness, extreme melancholia, extreme confusion, or any extreme emotion we’ve all felt; throughout so many of these deeply touching, deeply relatable speeches I, who am lucky enough to have never been an addict, thought ‘There but for the grace of god go I’. And I think the variety of other characters, some nicer than others, some more troubled than others, rather mediated this – Emma’s clearly the most charismatic addict there, but some of the duller ones allowed for many, broader entry points into this. Plus Herrin’s direction was so full on I was in Emma’s head from pretty much the word go.
And actually, Ryan, I think the best thing to say is yes, I found the characters irritating too. How Macmillan managed it I’ll never know, but he managed to show that people like Emma can be a wee bit annoying yet never had us off of her side. Gough deserves so much credit for this too (whenever I talk about the play, I tend to talk about direction and writing and leave her out of it – that’s wrong of me, she’s beyond incredible), but Emma got on my nerves, and the fact that she was allowed to be grating and problematic and not that awful cliché of a ‘strong female character’ is what made this so special. Had this painted addiction merely as some kind of last chance saloon that the desperate and mistreated go to and thus not dared to show addiction as dislikeable, it would have been terrible. Had this taken the tone of Sir David Hare’s terrible My Zinc Bed – that if it’s addiction or desire you have to sacrifice, be an addict – it would have been terrible. I think we never lost our sympathy with people who often knew that they were now trapped with something destructive within them for the rest of their lives, yet we weren’t asked to sympathise with their violence, their selfishness or their rudeness. We could empathise both with the victims and sufferers of addiction, and dislike them in their dislikeable moments. I thought this script was really quite incredible.
Also got to agree about Barbra Marten though. A truly amazing performance of withheld anger and a difficult life lived that was the perfect counterpoint to the louder, larger characters around her. That she was overlooked by not only the Oliviers but most reviews I’ve read disappoints and astounds me. But truly the bee’s knees is Denise.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2016 16:11:27 GMT
Watch the hands, the contrast between Gough and Marten is striking, a directorial/performance decision that illuminates each perfectly.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 30, 2016 17:31:11 GMT
I absolutely loved this, even from the rather vertiginous (maybe it was the head-cold making me feel it, as heights don't normally bother me) balcony.
It's the best new play I've seen for a long time, and I'm surprised Hangmen won the Olivier over it. That final scene is shattering, and drew audible gasps from the audience - there were a few recovering addicts in, judging from the interval conversations, so I guess it really hit home for them.
It's goi g to stay with me for a long time.
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Post by Jasmine on May 1, 2016 11:38:20 GMT
Loved this yesterday. And those on stage seats - WOW!
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Post by theatremadness on May 6, 2016 17:51:32 GMT
Was randomly on the DMT website looking at tickets for this and 3 £25 front row on-stage seats appeared for this on Thurs 12th evening only, can't find them on any other date for the rest of the run. Bought one of them, naturally, as this has made its way onto my must-see list but hadn't as of yet got round to it. No idea whether the other 2 are still there but thought I'd put a heads up on here for anyone else who may be interested!
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Post by popcultureboy on May 6, 2016 22:06:23 GMT
They're gone and DMT really are the worst for dynamic pricing as the front row on stage seating started out at £15.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2016 17:34:09 GMT
So I am not good at predicting things, with the news of Audra and the pregnancy, if they can't get a filler to go into the Wyndhams, couldn't they just extend People, Places and Things?  |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2016 18:07:44 GMT
So I am not good at predicting things, with the news of Audra and the pregnancy, if they can't get a filler to go into the Wyndhams, couldn't they just extend People, Places and Things? I was thinking the exact same thing, makes sense! How's it selling? If not, then why not bring back Hangmen? Missed that but would've loved to have seen it! |
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Post by Jon on May 10, 2016 19:04:09 GMT
So I am not good at predicting things, with the news of Audra and the pregnancy, if they can't get a filler to go into the Wyndhams, couldn't they just extend People, Places and Things? I was thinking the exact same thing, makes sense! How's it selling? If not, then why not bring back Hangmen? Missed that but would've loved to have seen it! I doubt Hangmen will be back. I think PPT is more likely to extend since it's a 10 week gap. |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2016 19:10:10 GMT
I was thinking the exact same thing, makes sense! How's it selling? If not, then why not bring back Hangmen? Missed that but would've loved to have seen it! I doubt Hangmen will be back. I think PPT is more likely to extend since it's a 10 week gap. That's what I imagine happening too, maybe a month/six week extension, followed by time to move the new show in. |
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Post by popcultureboy on May 11, 2016 8:25:58 GMT
PPT won't extend, I don't think. The Truth is looking to come in for a limited run from the Menier, around the time that Lady Day would have been playing so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's announced by the end of the week.
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Post by Jon on May 11, 2016 14:13:51 GMT
PPT won't extend, I don't think. The Truth is looking to come in for a limited run from the Menier, around the time that Lady Day would have been playing so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's announced by the end of the week. There are a few playhouses available for The Truth to go into but the Wyndham's wouldn't surprise me |
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Post by mallardo on May 14, 2016 7:14:55 GMT
I must be the last person here to have seen this so there's no need to repeat what's been said - even my sky high expectations were surpassed. Denise Gough as Emma... there are no words. And the rest of the cast. And the play itself which is an immaculately constructed piece of work in which everything planted early pays off late in ways that ring unexpectedly and shockingly true.
As someone with some experience in these matters I was glad to see the "upside" of the drug experience acknowledged; the bliss, the sense of confidence and what passes for contentment that can be attained in no other way, even by someone as articulate and intelligent as Emma. Addiction is so hard to combat because the addict doesn't really want to give up all those great feelings, despite knowing full well what the consequences will be. I thought Duncan Macmillan and Denise Gough caught that. As Emma's mother tells her so devastatingly, it was only when she was drunk or stoned that she was interesting. I'm sure all addicts feel the truth of that.
I also loved the parallels drawn between the drug high and the acting experience - both of them an escape from oneself into something that seems so much easier than coping with the daily improvisatory struggle with reality.
So much truth in this, so well dramatized, so well played. Amazing theatre.
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Post by callum on May 18, 2016 19:46:10 GMT
The scene at the end with her mother was so devastating, sheer theatrical ecstasy.
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2016 20:33:35 GMT
I must be the last person here to have seen this so there's no need to repeat what's been said - even my sky high expectations were surpassed. Not the last, next week for me, but looking forward to this even more now. |
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2016 20:42:59 GMT
Week after next for me. Better late than never, right?
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 22, 2016 15:36:54 GMT
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Post by Flim Flam on May 25, 2016 18:23:11 GMT
The scene at the end with her mother was so devastating, sheer theatrical ecstasy. It was, wasn't it. I was sitting in the stalls and during a crucial point of her interaction with her mother (trying not to spoil it for Baemax here), two people in separate parts of the auditorium loudly groaned, almost in tandem. Not in a 'bad behaviour' sort of a way, but in genuine shock. As if they (and all of us in fact) were so engaged with her daughter's journey that it wouldn't take much for any of us to get up there on the stage and sort the mother out! Fabulous. |
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Post by mallardo on May 25, 2016 18:26:11 GMT
The thing about the mother though - she's telling her daughter the truth.
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Post by Flim Flam on May 25, 2016 18:44:07 GMT
I don't disagree. She was telling her the truth. And truth can sometimes be brutal.
But I also felt that there was an element of 'chickens coming home to roost' there, in which the mother's attitude towards her daughter had contributed to the path the daughter had followed. And having followed the daughter's journey for most of the play, by that point, I felt that the audience were more invested in sympathising with the daughter and so experienced that scene more from the daughter's perspective. But my head was certainly spinning at that point, trying to reconcile those two contradictory stances.
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Post by mallardo on May 25, 2016 18:55:48 GMT
I absolutely agree with you - we're with the daughter and we experience the mother as cruel. It was only later, thinking about it, that it struck me that she was right and that her daughter had put her through hell. Both sides are true. A mark of just how well written this play is.
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Post by Jon on May 25, 2016 20:24:50 GMT
For anyone whose seen the play why does Emma/Sarah/Lucy give a false name, I assume being an actress. Claiming to be someone else comes natural to her |
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 10:05:14 GMT
I think it may come down to how much you empathise with internalised emotional distress. If you recognise it easily in yourself, then the play will instantly hook. If it isn't something you are particularly conscious of - and a lot of people are lucky not to be - then it's a harder climb. Having seen this yesterday I've now read (rather than skimmed) the thread about this and found the above particularly relevant for my visit.
I went with two people neither of whom liked it much, largely because they found the central character totally unsympathetic in the first half, and not much more so in the second. One companion said that they were much more interested in the other people in therapy, which I suspect was because they were further along the recovery process and therefore appeared more reasonable.
Yes, Sarah wasn't a "nice" person on the face of it, but I felt that the play and her performance were true to the self involvement of an addict - as it is said, addiction is like a parasite eroding the original personality. I could see a person who had been acting in a horrible way (think of the phone conversation with her mother) and did terrible things, but also somebody who was in distress, denial and in desperate need of help but couldn't believe in the help she was being offered. Her intelligence was working against her as she was initially unable to let go of the strong negative beliefs she had.
The AA thing was interesting to me to (very good section in the programme about this): being an atheist I have always found the 12 step thing quite bizarre with it's notions of a higher power, but do understand that the strength is in being with people who really understand. The powerlessness being applied to the title words makes more sense to me than the original AA statement - still prefer the newer SMART recovery ideas though.
The scene with her parents was heart breaking, and I felt that there was a lot going on behind it. Sarah had caused no end of pain, distress and disappointment, but was something in her family the initial trigger for this? The father who remained uninvolved, the loved dead brother who had the more easy personality, the high achieving mother who wanted her daughter to be something she wasn't? Who knows, probably never one clear reason why one person becomes addicted and another doesn't, but lots of points to think about.
Very glad I saw this late in the day - unsettling and upsetting in many ways, but well worth the visit.
Wish I had gone alone as I think I would have enjoyed it more without the awareness of two slightly restless people sitting with me.
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Post by danielwhit on May 28, 2016 8:25:18 GMT
I'm just disappointed the National clearly don't deem this worthy of the NT Live treatment. It's Olivier winning and clearly a highlight of this (and last) year's theatregoing.
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Post by mrbarnaby on May 28, 2016 10:22:35 GMT
I guess the fact it (sadly) is not a sell out in the west end must make them nervous there is sufficient demand for cinema screenings.
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