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Post by cavocado on Aug 11, 2023 14:49:45 GMT
All mention of RSC 37 project seems to have vnished. is this still happening Is this the new play thing? Yes it is. Eric W will be in charge of it. It's on the RSC website: www.rsc.org.uk/news/37-plays-unveiled. It says "The chosen plays will be performed, script-in-hand, across the UK this autumn." |
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Post by lynette on Aug 24, 2023 20:59:42 GMT
The Empress: there isn’t a separate thread for this and I don’t think it is worth starting one. It is transferring to the Lyric Hammersmith I think but it isn’t worth the detour. It has not worn well over the last ten years either dramatically or thematically.
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Post by Jan on Aug 29, 2023 9:13:32 GMT
An interview with Stewart Lee in the Times about his rewrite of the Porter scene for the RSC Macbeth.
"They said I couldn't have her call Shakespeare 'a stupid bald-headed c***'", Lee says. "That was the Porter's exit line, "This stuff is unperformable, 'that stupid bald-headed c***'. And then they cut that, which I kind of thought they would. At the last minute they also said take out three 'f***s' because of school trip matinees."
Elsewhere the director comments: "I knew Stewart had an English degree too, but that he would wear that really lightly". She got that right.
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Post by lichtie on Aug 31, 2023 14:43:41 GMT
After a couple of days in Stratford time for some thoughts... So I'm following Lynette in posting here rather than starting afresh.
Starting with the lesser lights. The Empress is too long for its material. The half about the ayah is probably a decent (half-length) play in its own right. The Victoria and Abdul strand now just looks silly, and is played almost as a parody, which doesn't sit well with the other half. So I'm with Lynette on this one - don't know why they bothered.
The Falklands play - again there is a half decent play in there struggling to get out. All of the Falklands material makes an interesting and decently told tale as a sequence of reported comments (similar to the style of Grenfell at the Dorfman). The UK based sections are like a play on Spitting Image from the 80s and completely out of place (though you suspect the playwright likes those bits more). So in the end frustrating, and I suspect never to be resurrected.
Macbeth - the reviews are out already spanning the gamut of *s. I think the middling ones are about right - someone near me called it a curate's egg which is pretty much spot on. Despite the "in the future" billing it's actually pretty neutral. With the exception of guns instead of swords at brief points (though daggers are present too) you could imagine it all in the past equally well. It's not trying to hammer home a point like in the panned NT version from a while back. Elements are actually well thought out and original - the presence of the three witches on the edges throughout circling as they view the chaos they have unleashed, and the way they emerge at the start; the musical soundscape which really drives the tone; the way in which it is clear that this is a martial society where leadership at arms gives status (though there is a sense that both Macbeth and Banquo have just been out for a summer stroll at the start rather than fighting for their lives, which is a directorial miss). Others missed the mark completely - turning Macbeth into an Othello like length is less than ideal; I didn't sense the required chemistry between Joseph and Kane that marks the best lead couples, and as with too many performances of Macbeth there's no real sense conveyed by the performance as to why Lady M goes bonkers. Other bits are middling since they're mostly in the ranks of why?- I know the RSC has gone for blind casting, but it ends up with real oddities, such as here where Macbeth and MacDuff are male, but Banquo (actually a very good performance), Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain and Siward are all female with no real attempt at trying to make something of it beyond chaning it to Queen Duncan etc.
As for Stewart Lee's much heralded rewrite - it's well delivered by Alison Peebles, playing up the full comic potential, but it's too long. Despite comments, equivocation still appears, as does hell, but all given a modern context to try and make it clearer to all the GCSE students present (at which perhaps too much of this version aims). Then it just keeps on and on, before the bloody door finally gets opened... Overall I think the middling grades in the reviews are right - this is genuinely Macbeth at least unlike some of the others that have been around recently, and an attempt at a novel production as well, but it misses too many of its marks to be really successful.
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Post by Jan on Aug 31, 2023 20:39:26 GMT
It’s only gender-blind casting they’ve gone for, apparently all the actors are Scottish. I wonder what their justification for that is - nationalism is OK if it’s the Scottish variety ?
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Post by lynette on Sept 2, 2023 14:35:49 GMT
Are all the cast really Scottish? I once was taken round an acting school and a class was going on. I was mesmerised. All the actors were Scottish…it was a class on accents.
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Post by Jan on Sept 3, 2023 8:51:02 GMT
Are all the cast really Scottish? I once was taken round an acting school and a class was going on. I was mesmerised. All the actors were Scottish…it was a class on accents. Yes it is an all-Scottish cast, the director has said this was deliberate in interviews. Imagine if the director boasted of using an all-English cast for one of the history plays. The Scots get a free pass on nationalism it seems. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Sept 3, 2023 11:06:14 GMT
I thought I read that Lady Macbeth was Irish and that was to make her more of an outsider
Just checked and Valene Kane is, indeed, from NI
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Post by lynette on Sept 5, 2023 11:34:30 GMT
I thought I read that Lady Macbeth was Irish and that was to make her more of an outsider Just checked and Valene Kane is, indeed, from NI O marvellous. Can’t wait for actors having to submit DNA and heritage status for future casting. Seeing it later in the month and knowing that WS can survive almost anything in production ( sticks for swords, R&J anyone?) I will keep an open mind. |
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Post by zahidf on Sept 28, 2023 9:39:41 GMT
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Post by Jan on Sept 28, 2023 12:48:29 GMT
An interesting appointment, and a good one. Maybe he can advise them on suitable venues for London transfers.
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Post by lynette on Sept 28, 2023 14:21:35 GMT
NH knows how to do a Shakespeare from what I’ve seen at the NT and Bridge. His prod of Othello best I’ve ever seen.
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 28, 2023 15:56:41 GMT
NH knows how to do a Shakespeare from what I’ve seen at the NT and Bridge. His prod of Othello best I’ve ever seen. Oh, yes. And going back to the late 80s at the RSC. His Measure for Measure with Roger Allam, Josette Simon, John Shrapnel and Alex Jennings was pure pleasure. Then Lear and the Tempest with John Wood. Henry V at the National. The Much Ado with SRB and Zoe Wannamaker. Timon of Athens. I'd like to see him to do a Shakespeare a year - the last one was a Midsummer Night's Dream in 2019. There must be quite a bit he hasn't done as he can do so much else: musicals, opera, new plays not just by Alan Bennett. Has he done As You Like It (actually he has, Wikipedia tells me, Royal Exchange 1986)? Antony and Cleopatra? Macbeth? Love's Labours Lost? |
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Post by Jan on Sept 28, 2023 16:29:15 GMT
NH knows how to do a Shakespeare from what I’ve seen at the NT and Bridge. His prod of Othello best I’ve ever seen. Oh, yes. And going back to the late 80s at the RSC. His Measure for Measure with Roger Allam, Josette Simon, John Shrapnel and Alex Jennings was pure pleasure. Then Lear and the Tempest with John Wood. Henry V at the National. The Much Ado with SRB and Zoe Wannamaker. Timon of Athens. I'd like to see him to do a Shakespeare a year - the last one was a Midsummer Night's Dream in 2019. There must be quite a bit he hasn't done as he can do so much else: musicals, opera, new plays not just by Alan Bennett. Has he done As You Like It (actually he has, Wikipedia tells me, Royal Exchange 1986)? Antony and Cleopatra? Macbeth? Love's Labours Lost? Yes that Measure for Measure was his best. He directed a lot of Shakespeare at NT, in addition to those you mention The Winter's Tale, Henry IV 1&2, Hamlet, Othello. Within that he also had a policy of staging some of those those Shakespeare plays that the NT had never done before, hence All's Well directed by Marianne Elliot. |
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 28, 2023 20:14:46 GMT
I must admit that I am longing to see what Hytner does next. I suppose Guys and Dolls still has five months to run. I'd love him to do another Shakespeare in the same style.
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Post by kate8 on Sept 29, 2023 7:24:53 GMT
Good appointment. In my dreams this will lead to the RSC having a long term residency at the Bridge for part of the year. Great venue for Stratford transfers, a London presence, and a bit more financial security for the Bridge? But maybe I should just be satisfied for now with new ADs and a few signs of a more ambitious RSC.
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Post by cirque on Sept 29, 2023 8:04:35 GMT
I share your thinking. Daniel and Tamara are setting up a structure it seems that will be worth waiting for.Trouble is we have to wait until next spring before anything can really happen.
Fingers crossed .
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Post by oxfordsimon on Sept 29, 2023 8:11:04 GMT
I think people are overstating how much this appointment might actually change things.
Hytner isn't going to be making programming or casting decisions.
He is there to advise and support.
If he wants to direct for the RSC, that would be great. But why would he when he would have far greater freedom using the resources open to him at the Bridge?
It is good that he wants to be part of the RSC again but it is not like he will be running the placem
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Post by zahidf on Nov 15, 2023 10:15:45 GMT
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Post by oxfordsimon on Nov 15, 2023 10:26:18 GMT
That feels like a good home for it. Though the second half of act 2 will need reimagining in terms of the staging.
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Post by cirque on Dec 1, 2023 14:37:19 GMT
Time to anticipate Evans/Harvey vision for RSC
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Post by Jan on Dec 1, 2023 15:03:30 GMT
Time to anticipate Evans/Harvey vision for RSC Is the Midsummer Night’s Dream they’re staging Feb-Mar next year a legacy of the previous regime ? I don’t recall it being announced but I don’t follow them all that closely these days. |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Dec 1, 2023 15:04:28 GMT
I thought Evans made some good choices in Sheffield but I wasnt excited at his Chichester programming
Im guessing we'll get a musical a year and as Sondheim is de rigueur ...
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Post by cirque on Dec 1, 2023 15:43:58 GMT
EW programmed until April...new stuff afterwards
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Post by kate8 on Dec 2, 2023 8:49:48 GMT
I hope their first season announcement will show:
Commitment to bringing in experienced and up-and-coming directors.
A couple of decent lead actors already cast.
A play by a Shakespeare contemporary (not a new play based on a Jacobethan one, as I think Fair Maid is).
TOP reopening this summer.
By the end of next year: I hope we’ll see much-needed improvements in quality and consistency.
Over the next 4-5 years:
I doubt they will return to being a proper company, but I hope they will build longer term relationships with a group of directors, actors and designers who return regularly, and that Stratford will once again feel like an exciting place to visit.
Edited to add to my wishlist:
A commitment to a regular London presence (I’m still hoping that Nick Hytner joining the board might suggest a deal with the Bridge. An annual 3-4 month RSC season there would be perfect!)
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