Ear for eye

[Deleted]

If anyone has seen this

PLEASE enlighten

What is the point

So many people left during the show

It was really
Distracting all the noise of seats and shuffling

2H 10M no interval doesn’t help

I do wonder if all the (white) press will feel obliged
To give it good reviews

For me it went backwards in any progress
In race relations

I am also unsure if I interpreted it wrong

But all issues in the black community
Are due to slavery

Seems to be the point

Debbie Tucker Green
Is usually amazing

She obviously has a massive chip on her shoulder

Instead of taking a proper look
At why many black males fail to fulfill their academic potential compared to other ethic minorities
Or why most victims of knife crime
In London
Are black males under the age of 30

We have this patronising piece

Shame

I have never felt so alienated in the theatre

And seen a piece try to make its point

So crudely and badly and clumsily

[Deleted]

Dear God noooooo!!! Over 2 hours with no interval? I have tickets for this and have been looking forward to it, but over two hours with no interval?

[Stephen]

Seeing this on Saturday.

Reminds me of the time I went to see Follies and needed the loo from 10 minutes in. Not good! I've learned my lesson and shan't drink all day in preparation!

[Deleted]

I have heard good things about this. On Twitter people are calling it a work of genius.

[schuttep]

I have tix for this but didn't enjoy her previous Royal Court outing "a profoundly affectionate , passionate devotion to someone (noun)". Sitting on stools? Pleeeease! Nevertheless I am prepared to give her another go...

[TallPaul]

Is the entire playtext written in lower case?

[nash16]

Oct 30, 2018 8:59:43 GMT @cleoskryker said:

I have heard good things about this. On Twitter people are calling it a work of genius.

Now, we know by now NOT to trust twitter reviews...especially in previews...

[Deleted]

Oct 30, 2018 14:28:54 GMT nash16 said:

Oct 30, 2018 8:59:43 GMT @cleoskryker said:

I have heard good things about this. On Twitter people are calling it a work of genius.

Now, we know by now NOT to trust twitter reviews...especially in previews...

Not true, as Very etc. Dark Matter and others have shown. It’s good to hear from those who connect with productions before the gatekeepers of criticism get to weigh in. 

[nash16]

Oct 30, 2018 15:12:45 GMT @cardinalpirelli said:

Oct 30, 2018 14:28:54 GMT nash16 said:

Now, we know by now NOT to trust twitter reviews...especially in previews...

Not true, as Very etc. Dark Matter and others have shown. It’s good to hear from those who connect with productions before the gatekeepers of criticism get to weigh in. 

Yes, it is often true.  

[Deleted]

Oct 30, 2018 15:35:56 GMT nash16 said:

Oct 30, 2018 15:12:45 GMT @cardinalpirelli said:

Not true, as Very etc. Dark Matter and others have shown. It’s good to hear from those who connect with productions before the gatekeepers of criticism get to weigh in. 

Yes, it is often true.  

Only be way of small scale productions where commenters tend to be close to the production. With West End and larger Off West End productions you get a larger and useful unfiltered range of views. You also have to do more searching than just the official hashtag to get a fuller picture.

[Steve]

Oct 29, 2018 21:56:02 GMT @parsley said:

If anyone has seen this
PLEASE enlighten
So many people left during the show

I am also unsure if I interpreted it wrong
But all issues in the black community
Are due to slavery

I have never felt so alienated in the theatre
And seen a piece try to make its point
So crudely and badly and clumsily

Some spoilers follow. . .

In my opinion, people are walking out because their expectations for the show (entertainment) don't match the content (education). Debbie Tucker Green moved away from narrative in her last piece, "a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone" towards more Churchill/Pinter type territory, where words are interrogated for their effects. Now it seems as if her suspicions about language as being a coded power structure, which have presumably resulted in her not using capital letters, have spread to a suspicion of dramatic narrative. This is alienating for fans of her previous work, where her poetry and insights were accompanied by the entertaining aspects of narrative storytelling.

While slavery is implicated as a root evil from which many issues derive, I think the play is not about slavery as such, but about how words are used as weapons. Since the point of the play is about the use of words, we are asked to use our "ears" as our "eyes" in this matter, to deconstruct the exact way language comes together to oppress.

For me, this is a difficult piece to assess. It forms three segmented parts, labelled as such, and while I felt the lengthy opening part was unduly alienating, I felt the second part was utterly brilliant, and I also liked the third part.

Spoilers follow. . .

This piece is structured like a legal argument thus:

Part 1: A compendium of the damage done by language in the context of race, both in the US and the UK;

Part 2: An extended illustrated scene demonstrating the mechanisms of language, and how it is coded and used to oppress;

Part 3: A closing argument that shows the origins of such oppressive language in racist laws, in the US and the UK.

Part 1 is so bone dry of narrative, so devoted to decoding language, that although the fragmented scenes depicting damage done to human beings by oppressive language could be overwhelmingly moving, instead they feel like a lecture from a geeky professor who has overestimated both her audience's intelligence and patience, and who bores them to tears. This tedium is ameliorated by astonishing performances by a stupendous cast (with Eric Kofi Abrefa the best of the best, so much feeling does he effortlessly emote), who will all go on to brilliant careers, but in truth, no matter how much feeling they try to inject, the material fights them back, and won't allow them to wallow in feeling and/or narrative. The piece doesn't want to be about that. It is instead like the parroting of names on a war memorial, listing the victims of stereotyping words, that pinhole black people as "aggressive" and "angry." Result: endless sounds of doors opening and closing, as audience members abandon hope, and flee.

Part 2: is utterly brilliant. Even more forensic than the first part, this minutely detailed look at a scene in which a white "male," played by Demetri Goritsas, attempts to dominate a black "female," Lashana Lynch, with familiar language tropes is, both revealing and hilarious. Goritsas beautifully conveys the self-righteousness unknowingness of a man unwittingly brainwashed by the very language he speaks, and Lynch reflects the frustration of someone who took the red pill and can see the bullsh*t underlying the language, but cannot escape the prison of the matrix she lives in. The humour and precision of this scene makes it easily the most effective and revealing of the play.

Part 3: is movies, in which US segregation laws and UK slavery laws of the past are read by everyday white people. It's a crushing and clever conclusion to the play, as it follows the river of the first two parts to their point of origin: the moment that the law gave power to evil conceptions and words, and gave birth to the methodology of the second part, and thus the immense and endless human carnage of the first part.

Overall, I think this is an important play, but by being too much the clever professor in the first lengthy part, Debbie Tucker Green alienates her audience so much that many have stopped listening by the time the play hits its hardest. For Eric Kofi Abrefa's soulfulness, for Goritsas' pedanticism, for Lashana Lynch's incredulity, for the insights of the third part, and above all, for the emotionally engaging and savagely funny second part of play, I give this 3 and a half stars.

[crowblack]

Oct 31, 2018 10:36:09 GMT Steve said:

listening

This sounds like it may be well suited/better suited to radio?

[Stephen]

Thank you Steve for breaking this down. I'll know to be patient with it!

[foxa]

Thanks, Steve, for that really detailed review. debbie tucker green is fantastically talented and I really liked 'random' (also felt grateful to it as, when I was teaching, I used it with some of my A level students and it always worked a treat) and 'nut.' I was less engaged with 'a profoundly...' and when I read the booking blurb for 'eye for ear' decided not to book in advance. You make Part 2 sound really interesting - enough to hand over 2 hours plus and ££? Probably not.

[nash16]

Thank you, Steve.

You've just saved me a night being anywhere near this one.

The sound of it....

[foxa]

Now I am very interested to read the reviews. I know twitter isn't reliable, but much of what I've seen there is very enthusiastic and the literary manager at the Royal Court is throwing himself behind this - which you might think, 'he would do,' but he doesn't always. Says he couldn't love anyone who didn't want to see this play and that it was one of the 'greatest' evenings in the theatre he's ever had. Was anyone there last night?

[samuelwhiskers]

I was there last night, really enjoyed it. In the cold light of day I'm not how to mentally categorise it but it's astounding. You can get lost in the language.

[Stephen]

5* from the Stage
4* from the Guardian and Independent.

Excited to see this on Saturday.

[Steve]

Oct 31, 2018 18:57:04 GMT foxa said:

Thanks, Steve, for that really detailed review. debbie tucker green is fantastically talented and I really liked 'random' (also felt grateful to it as, when I was teaching, I used it with some of my A level students and it always worked a treat) and 'nut.' I was less engaged with 'a profoundly...' and when I read the booking blurb for 'eye for ear' decided not to book in advance. You make Part 2 sound really interesting - enough to hand over 2 hours plus and ££? Probably not.

"Random" and "Nut" are also my favourites. I did enjoy "Hang" too, though less, as the characters weren't likeable, and "Truth and Reconciliation" was alright, though the multiplicity of characters in that meant we didn't get deep enough with them.

There really aren't any characters in part 1 of this: just condensed raging poetry, which requires more attention than Shakespeare to follow, I reckon.

I suspect the no-interval thing is because they fear audiences will run for the hills, and never get to the good bits otherwise lol. It's quite remarkable that so many people are willing to endure the antisocial hell of leaving mid-performance anyway. That should die down now that people actually know what they are getting from the reviews, which is the main reason I included so many spoilers myself, to help people who really want to be there to be there, but more so, to help the people who really aren't up for this sort of thing to save their cash and time for something more to their taste.

[crowblack]

Oct 31, 2018 18:57:04 GMT foxa said:

Thanks, Steve, for that really detailed review

I've got a toss-up between this and Measure for Measure for this month's London matinee trip. I think I'll go with this.

[Deleted]

Thanks Steve for the useful breakdown!

Mostly enjoyed this. Found the first part more involving than I expected - there are a few vague narrative threads linking most of the scenes. Lost a bit of patience when some were repeated but the different directions they took justified it.

Loved part 2 - would have watched a full play on these two. Got a very vocal reaction from people in the stalls for whom the themes were clearly resonating a lot

Part 3 I had mixed feelings on - exposing the detail of those sets of laws was eye-opening but watching what was basically an art installation when you’re already 2 hours in was trying my patience.

Cast was great - particularly impressed by Toisin Cole who was a world away from his Doctor Who character (hey these actors right!!)

[Stephen]

Nov 3, 2018 18:16:53 GMT @xanderl said:

Thanks Steve for the useful breakdown!

Mostly enjoyed this. Found the first part more involving than I expected - there are a few vague narrative threads linking most of the scenes. Lost a bit of patience when some were repeated but the different directions they took justified it.

Loved part 2 - would have watched a full play on these two. Got a very vocal reaction from people in the stalls for whom the themes were clearly resonating a lot

Part 3 I had mixed feelings on - exposing the detail of those sets of laws was eye-opening but watching what was basically an art installation when you’re already 2 hours in was trying my patience.

Cast was great - particularly impressed by Toisin Cole who was a world away from his Doctor Who character (hey these actors right!!)

I was there for the matinee today. Agree with everything you've said.

I thought the simplicity of the staging/design allowed for the audience to become really immersed. I certainly was.

Unfortunately there was a lady in the rear stalls that had an increasingly vocal reaction the the piece. Quite distracting but nice to see the response!

4* from me.

[zahidf]

I thought this was great overall. I agree the third part seemed a bit pointless, but Part 1 and 2 made up for it. A LOT of reaction to Part 2, which is good

[theatrelover123]

I have a single ticket to this on Monday (12th) and the seat is brilliantly placed in middle of row G of stalls. I can no longer make it because of work. I paid £12 for it. Shout if interested in taking it.

[NeilVHughes]

An excellent piece of work, challenging at times and completely absorbing.

Part 1: a simple idea marvellously built upon, continually turning in on itself, have to hand it to the actors who were symphonic.


Part 2: Arguing with the deaf, lots of reaction from the audience tonight as the premise of who can and cannot be perpetrators of organised violence was openly ridiculed.


Part 3: The past is not that far away.

(Have always thought the British involvement in Slavery came to a natural conclusion once the population of plantation slaves became reproductive making transportation unnecessary and was always more financial in nature than moral, the narrative is all)


The only let down was the simplistic aural conclusion.