The Convert - Young Vic

[nash16]

Saw the 2nd preview of this last night. It's in amazing shape considering they're only just starting.

It takes it's time (3hrs 5mins last night, with just two 10 minute breaks), but compared to the much quicker production at the Gate a few years back, is all the better for it.

Letitia Wright excels in the lead role. She really is someone special and watching her made me want to see her play all the classical roles, and more modern classics like this one.

The play is very good, really making the audience battle their judgements on colonialism and empire.

The set, the currently en-trend gauze box framing, works brilliantly in that it focuses attention solely on the acting.

The rest of the company are brilliant with only Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Prudence seeming to need a bit more time to come up to their standard. (She was last to be cast, so this may explain something).

Ola Ince has directed with great understanding of the piece and created a thrilling (and at time funny) 3hrs or drama. Danai Gurira has been gifted the production her play deserves.

The reviews should be 4-5* all round. A great hit for Young Vic, after the popular if lightweight Twelfth Night.

[NeilVHughes]

Thanks@nash16 , Twitter has been extremely positive with mentions of standing ovations, pleased to have it backed up by a Boardee.

Booked on the strength of Paapa Essiedu, having little knowledge of the play.

[zahidf]

This was SUPERB at the gate, so if the young Vic version is better, I'm definitely looking forward to it!

[dlevi]

I caught this last night ( Monday ) and was more impressed by its themes and construction than its characters. The performances were all strong and the staging was at times taut and effective. The less effective bits - the natives screaming in the aisles etc. I'll not comment upon. The audience did stand up and cheer at the end though I don't really know know why. It's a solid ( if a bit too long) evening, but not so great as to warrant the standing o. I fear we're becoming a bit too much like the states in that regard. Let's have the courage to stay seated unless its exceptional. Ok?

[Deleted]

This is far inferior

To the staging and acting at The Gate

Which I loved as a whole

Here The acting is dodgy

Accents veering all over the shop

The acoustics poor

And is a good 20 mins longer than The Gate running time

Generally it’s lacking in all departments

Funniest thing is seeing the inept
YV ushers

Having a meltdown and acopia twice

Due to the two short intervals

Loads of people left after the first interval

Huge gaps appeared

Maybe 1/5 of the lower level didn’t reappear

I do think the director is to blame for a lot of the faults

She is often an assistant on stuff

She lacks the heft and experience

To carry a show on her own

[Deleted]

God left this at the second interval

Doesn’t do that much for minority’s in the arts

Black playwright
Black director
Black actors

And it’s such a f*** up

The most pathetic stage death I have ever seen

Also it appears to me the YV are more concerned with gathering audiences from some sort of

Community scheme pilot

Looks like the days of the old
Regime sell outs will be long gone

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2018 22:32:54 GMT zahidf said:

This was SUPERB at the gate, so if the young Vic version is better, I'm definitely looking forward to it!

The Gate version

Was much much much better

Paapa Essiedu is so miscast

And Pamela Nomovete has massive diction issues

[dani]

Dec 12, 2018 20:40:45 GMT @parsley said:

Funniest thing is seeing the inept
YV ushers

Having a meltdown and acopia twice

I had to look up "acopia". So I have learned something here.

[Steve]

One of the best things I've seen at the National recently was Lorraine Hansberry's epic play, "Les Blancs," in which am explosive Danny Sapani played a character whose African identity is torn to pieces by colonialism. There is no doubt in my mind that Danai Gurira has read that play, as this is that in microcosm. Gurira's great innovation is in recognising the whole Henry Higgins complex essence of colonialism, it's overweening arrogance, but also it's patronisingly well-meaning aspects.

Some spoilers follow. . .

So this play is essentially "Les Blancs" recast as Shaw's "Pygmalion," with Letitia Wright as Eliza Doolittle (aka Jekesai), the girl liberated by Paapa Essiedu's Henry Higgins (aka Chilford) from the stifling confines of a culture that wants to force her to marry an old man, only to find her identity, family and sense of self torn to pieces.

This play captures the best of both "Pygmalion" and "Les Blancs," with Paapa Essiedu's gushing glowing Chilford's toothy beaming pride in his "protege's" advancement as delightful as Letitia Wright's excitement and facility with broadening her horizons, only to be overtaken and contrasted as the confusion and cruelty intrinsic to colonialism infect both master and protege thereafter.

In the Gate production, the hothouse atmosphere and immediacy of staging such epic and roiling emotions on a stage the size of a cupboard, with actors and audience one foot away from each other, was electric. This is a much more considered production, in the round as if under a microscope, with vast surrounding scrims that rise and fall periodically to semi-shield the audience from the action, and contain the hopes and dreams of the characters in conjunction with the emerging themes of the play. Both Gate and Young Vic productions are equally excellent in my view, as I found the added thoughtfulness of this production enhanced my appreciation for the play even as it distanced me from the theatrical thrillride of being caught in a maelstrom.

Unlike the Gate, where my unfamiliarity with the actors enhanced my immersion in the immediacy of that production, my familiarity with the actors onstage here (the one from Black Panther, the one who played Hamlet, the one from Humans) added, for me, a considered meta element that enhanced my consideration of the fluidity of the identities of people, in conjunction with the identity-exploding themes of this play.

Letitia Wright is a terrific "Eliza Doolittle," at first charmingly wild, vulnerable and naive, and later, empowered, tortured and enlightened, her slight frame and eager expressive eyes advancing and retreating, never still; Paapa Essiedu is equally good, stillness incarnate by comparison, a calcified self-regarding product of colonial indoctrination, whose basic goodness shines through in the beatific wideness of his smile and his ever-furrowing brows.

I also enjoyed Ivanno Jeremiah, who flips the monotonous pleading compassion of his "Humans" robot character for a brazen Trumpian opportunist, playing to the crowd like he cares, contradicting himself by roving acquisitive eyes set in pillage mode.

Among the wider ensemble, Rudolphe Mdlongwa is superb as Tamba, Jekesai's brother, convincingly adopting postures to disguise his character's confusion, then revealing that confusion tenderly.

All in all, a tremendous, thoughtful production of a tremendous thoughtful play. 4 and a half stars from me.

[NeilVHughes]

The Stage review 5*

Ola Ince’s staging of Danai Gurira’s The Convert is one of those rare productions in which every element – performances, direction, design, everything – is superb. This is as good as theatre gets.

[nash16]

Dec 15, 2018 13:02:39 GMT NeilVHughes said:

The Stage review 5*

Ola Ince’s staging of Danai Gurira’s The Convert is one of those rare productions in which every element – performances, direction, design, everything – is superb. This is as good as theatre gets.

It really is wonderful. Thrilled it's getting recognised like this.

[dani]

Dec 12, 2018 21:35:20 GMT @parsley said:

God left this at the second interval

I bet he had a good seat and all.

[missthelma]

Aaah the pleasures of an afternoon at the Young Vic where the audience is usually composed of people so achingly hipster, you begin to absorb the pretension. By the second interval I was toying with opening an artisanal cafe which sold only camels milk based products. Plus I'd grown a beard and started to need glasses, black frames only, obviously

Anyway onto the play, but first a complaint, I bloody bloody bloody HATE theatre in the round. I feel sure it should be in the contract that when the director or designer or whoever decides to go for this, anybody that bought an advance ticket should be contacted and asked if they want to spend most of an afternoon/evening looking at the back of a performers head and missing half the action. Dear God, it is so frustrating, I find it especially gratifying when the person whose back you see has contrived to be in a position where they block the other people/person on stage.

So The Convert, it's a fairly dense multi layered play which seemed to me to ask us to reflect on the masks we all wear to get by in life and how we can lose sight of our selves. And also the damage done by colonialism and to an extent, Christianity. There was so much to take in I think I will be finding ideas and coming up with thoughts for a few days. Powerful writing. I found Act 1 quite alienating which I wondered if it was deliberate to reflect the themes of the play and the feelings of the main protagonist. Act 2 & 3 are both very tense and powerfully acted drawing the viewer in and exerting a very strong grip, I didn't want them to end, I wanted more of the characters and their lives. I found the female members of the cast more impressive than the male most especially Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Prudence who owned the stage when she was on it in my opinion. A very difficult and complex character to play as well. Music is used sparingly and very effectively. I was surprised that it was not a full house but less surprised at the obligatory ovation. I didn't stand myself but more because I was processing what I'd seen which I think is more important than leaping to your feet to show everyone how clever you are.

[showgirl]

Well, it can't have been a 100% hip audience as I was also at the matinee (which I enjoyed and which, contrary to my fears, didn't seem too heavy or drag at all), though I seem to have been luckier than you, missthelma, with my seat. I do genuinely prefer theatre-in-the-round - or the next best thing, eg 3 sides or a thrust or traverse stage, but yes with this production I can see that the view would at times be better from some sides than others.

I found the whole play fascinating and I too was mesmerised by Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, though I didn't find her character and behaviour credible in that setting and in (I believe) the 1890's. Would a woman really have been so liberated and outspoken even though, as she said, this made her a misfit?

Absolutely worth seeing and I only booked a few days beforehand on the basis of reviews and early posts here. The subject hadn't appealed to me (hands up: it sounded too worthy) when this was originally seen at the Gate, but it must surely have benefited from the bigger space at the Young Vic, so for once I didn't mind not seeing it at the original venue.

[Deleted]

I was also there at the matinee, lowering the average hipness level significantly

Thought this was excellent. I didn't see the Gate production so can't compare the two.

My £20 seat was in the back row of the circle - view from there was actually very good as nothing got blocked by people standing in the way.

[theatrelover123]

Dec 22, 2018 20:24:53 GMT missthelma said:

My advance booked £20 tickets have now been confirmed as seats A29 and 30 (front row) in a few weeks. I assume there is a reason for them being there for £20 and I’m guessing that it’s because the view is blocked a lot? Do you also have to look up to the stage? I can’t easily tell what side of the stage the seats the sit from the plans as all the front row seats have been sold. I didn’t pay for “restricted view”

[Deleted]

I paid £10 and was in the front row. The stage floor is only really like a step up from row A's floor, and the only way that my view was restricted was that sometimes I was looking at the backs of people's heads, and that's going to happen to *every* audience member at some point when a production is in the round. It's not really worth worrying about for this play.

[kathryn]

I was A41, and it was fine, really. Some moments are back-of-head experiences because of being in the round but there was nearly always someone in the scene I could see clearly.

[learfan]

Saw today's matinee. This was solid enough, you could certainly see the influence of Shaw. From i could observe lots of theatre virgins, no doubt attracted by T'Challa's sister on stage. always on the phone, thinking the intervals were the end of the play. However if it gets them to go again then all well and good. Paapa Essiedu is a good actor but im afraid I couldn't understand a lot of what he said, the staging may have been partly to blame plus i was in the circle but even so. Some predictably hysterical applause at the end. Some interesting themes. Solid 3 stars.

[NeilVHughes]

The strong start to 2019 continues, a play that throws light on the hypocrisy/truth of Colonialism and Missions and deserves praise for the depiction of what it really means to be colonised, the inability to criticise the coloniser and the revelation that when it comes to practicing what you preach, oppression will always trump religious ideals.

Paapa Essiedu is a revelation in everything he does, his depiction of a man who truly believes in advancement through colonisation being slowly torn apart as his ideals are slowly unravelled leaving him a foreigner in his own Country.

[foxa]

We were there Friday night and enjoyed it. Paapa Essiedu and Letitia Wright were both outstanding and I liked the way the writer allowed for complexities/ambiguities in the depiction of religion.  The supporting characters were less well-developed. At one point, a character's evil turn seemed a bit ludicrous.

I usually love in the round staging, but I'm not sure that either that or the overall stage design with the scrim walls, so I sometimes found myself watching the action through the open doorway, to get an unfiltered view, served the play very well. We were in the front row on the aisle but found long sections, including some vital ones, where we couldn't see a character's face and missed a couple of important lines. But sometimes it played to our advantage and we were in the ideal place for the final image and found it very moving.

For us, the three hours went quickly and we had a lot to talk about afterwards. Essiedu and Wright are so alive and skillful on stage that to see them up close was a not-to-be-missed opportunity.

Celeb spotting: Kenneth Branagh was in the audience.  Oh, and if you are worrying about views , KB and his companion were (I think) near your seats, theatrelover123, so those must be good seats?  We were in the lower numbers row A.