Force Majeure - Donmar Warehouse

[theoracle]

Full cast revealed

[theoracle]

First preview tomorrow night. I'm not seeing it till January but will be keen to hear people's thoughts if anyone is going tomorrow or during the preview period

[mkb]

Well, that was ambitious! They've only gone and transformed the Donmar stage into an actual ski run! Down which the cast actually ski! Ok, so they don't go very fast, but it's impressive in such a tiny auditorium nonetheless.

The consequence of this is that all the action, including indoor scenes, takes place on a stage perilously inclined at a ten-degree angle. Chairs and tables are not afforded shorter rear legs, so there is fun and jeopardy aplenty as you wonder what will topple over first. At last night's first preview, nothing did. A duvet trapped in a rotating bed mechanism was the only hiccough.

I didn't know the Swedish movie Turist (released here as Force Majeure) on which this play is based. As with most tales, not knowing what is to come makes the exposition all the more delicious. All you need to know is that it's a comedy drama centred around a Swedish couple and their teenage kids on a somewhat reluctant vacation in the Alps. Some interesting points about familial and gender relationships are made along the way, but that's secondary to the action.

The cast acquitted themselves admirably given this was their first public outing. Henry Hunt as the teenage son was particularly good I thought. Rory Kinnear, as the beleaguered father, was on good form as usual, but it's not a rôle to stretch him. A few cast members struggled to project their voices and were difficult to hear over the soundtrack of ambient crowd noise and wind.

I wasn't entirely won over by the movement direction. Sometimes it works (the nightclub scene), sometimes it doesn't quite capture the mood it is seeking to recreate. Companies like Frantic Assembly do these things better.

The lighting designer has done no favours to the audience seated downstairs stage right: prepare to be blinded periodically by lights that traverse the thrust stage.

Also noteworthy from a seating perspective is that the first three seats of row B downstairs (far stage left) have been raised six inches, so there is no rake for seats C1 to C3 behind, which are on the same level. Seats C4 onwards on that side are unaffected.

With the honing and refinement that flow from previews, I expect this production will grow into a solid four-star entertainment. Right now, its a strong three, and makes a good choice if you fancy some snow-filled fun over the festive season.

Act 1: 19:43-20:56
Act 2: 21:19-22:11

[drmaplewood]

Tonight has been cancelled due to a suspected Covid case in the cast.

[Dave B]

We are due on Friday evening, will have to wait and see if it gets going again and/or how the general situation is looking by then.

[n1david]

Cancelled for Tues-Thurs. I'm supposed to be there Saturday, fingers crossed for both of us Dave B!

[lonlad]

Press night for this, as with HEX and MOULIN ROUGE, now pushed into January

[n1david]

Bugger. Cancelled until 23 Dec. I had nice front-row centre stalls seats, too. Not much left for the remaining performances.

[n1david]

Dec 15, 2021 15:28:56 GMT n1david said:

Bugger. Cancelled until 23 Dec. I had nice front-row centre stalls seats, too. Not much left for the remaining performances.

...and now cancelled until 29 Dec. Wow, this is really destroying Christmas theatre trips (which means associated business at West End bars and restaurants will collapse too)

[mrbarnaby]

Dec 15, 2021 17:12:08 GMT n1david said:

Dec 15, 2021 15:28:56 GMT n1david said:

Bugger. Cancelled until 23 Dec. I had nice front-row centre stalls seats, too. Not much left for the remaining performances.

...and now cancelled until 29 Dec. Wow, this is really destroying Christmas theatre trips (which means associated business at West End bars and restaurants will collapse too)

This is only going to get worse. It’s starting to feel like theatre is untenable at the current moment. And audience confidence is plummeting.

[Dave B]

We saw this last night and enjoyed it but very much with the caveat that it's a pale comparison to the original and it sticks almost too closely to it. It doesn't bring anything, add anything, it just takes the scenes and places them on stage.

Now yes, the stage is good, the ski slope is well done and the transitions are handled really well - top marks on that. The cast are good, the supporting cast are good , and it is still funny but for us it just lacked oomph.

So again, we enjoyed it but could not help being a bit disappointed heading home. Talking about it though, we did think that it was likely to worked better for anyone going in cold (no pun intended...)

Reasonably full, strong mask usage. Finished about 21.50

[youngoffender]

Jan 7, 2022 11:10:31 GMT Dave B said:

 it's a pale comparison to the original and it sticks almost too closely to it. It doesn't bring anything, add anything, it just takes the scenes and places them on stage.

This was my concern when this was announced. There have been a lot of 'stage to screen' adaptations where nothing was gained artistically, but which were still worthwhile in bringing a great script and/or performances to a wider audience. The other way round, it's harder to find a justification - I'm sure the substantial majority of those booking for this have seen and enjoyed Ruben Ostlund's film, so if it's just an exercise in ticking off the scenes, does it have any greater merit than the Will Ferrell knock-off?

[bordeaux]

Yes, there seems little point in these screen to stage adaptations unless the director of the play is herself/himself an auteur or at least has a strong and original take on the original material. The whole thing had an air of pointlessness about it.

[Deleted]

I saw Rory perform at RSC in 2003 when he was first starting out and it has been good to see him develop into such a fine actor. His Dad was a superb comic actor who a lot of older board viewers will remember fondly and seeing the press photos for this play the likeness between him and Rory is now uncanny.

[theatrefan77]

This was good overall but I prefer the film. Top marks for the set but the actual play is almost just a copy of the movie as pointed out by other posters here.

It's still an enjoyable night out, even more if you are not familiar with film. 3.5 stars

[theoracle]

Finally got to see this for myself tonight. Went in practically blind to the plot - booked to see Rory Kinnear who was fab as was Lyndsey Marshall. Also, huge props to the kids who went on with their A game and you got a sense that were actually a family. I thought the humour certainly registered well with the audience and there were plenty of laughs as well as moments of intense silence during more dramatic moments in the show. The sloped set was interesting too and I enjoyed seeing the way it was used in different ways throughout the performance. That being said, I don't think this was the strongest script and with a less pristine cast, I don't think this would've worked as well. The programme features some interesting pieces on trauma and masculinity which are also worth reading. Definitely worth seeing this production though if you can - a perfectly enjoyable evening for my first trip to the theatre of the year.

[Mark]

Very good. Hadn't seen the film so it was all new to me. Many laugh out loud moments and thought it worked well on stage. Very clever use of the space, certainly one of the most elaborate stages I've seen at the Donmar.
I think you'd certainly have a restricted view from the far sides of the stalls due to stage height and lots of tables/chairs. My row C circle seat right in the corner was surprisingly great with no restrictions

[mkb]

Jan 12, 2022 23:50:15 GMT Mark said:

I think you'd certainly have a restricted view from the far sides of the stalls due to stage height and lots of tables/chairs. My row C circle seat right in the corner was surprisingly great with no restrictions

Sometimes, as here, my husband and I take two single seats, when there are no decent pairs left. We always swap seats at the interval. That meant I saw act 1 from the stalls stage right, and act 2 from the opposite side. The view is good from both sides, but, as I said in my previous post, there are a small number of seats stage left where the rake is reduced, so you may need to look around tall people in front.

[n1david]

Grumpy going in as my lovely front row centre stalls seat went in the cancellations before Christmas, and I ended up in a side stalls seat where the choreography really didn't work, and in the climactic final scene had a very minor character directly in my sightline. And no points to the Donmar for tonight being a Director's Circle benefit, pushing all the regular punters into the upstairs bar which really wasn't designed to cope. So I wasn't in a great place to start with.

And the play didn't really win me around. Rory and Lindsay acted their socks off with virtually nothing to work with, but I found the play horribly episodic and the frequent scene changes were incredibly clunky and broke up the drama. I had some sympathy for both of the lead characters but neither of their reactions to the events felt real, the kids are bloody pains, the friends in the foursome scene felt sit-com-ish, almost pantomimic, the whole thing felt very under-developed and the shifts in tone utterly undeserved. I'm keen to see the film now to see if that manages things a bit better, but this was a fail for me.

My social media tells me that 11 years ago tonight I saw Jacobi in Lear in the same space.

[n1david]

I stumbled on the trailer for the film today, and was surprised - even from the trailer - how little was changed from the film to the stage.
If you've seen this, you've basically seen the play...

[mrnutz]

I really enjoyed this at the weekend. I had no prior knowledge of the film but watching that trailer it does indeed seem very, very similar! So maybe best if you're new to it.

Thought it was very funny, creatively staged and with excellent performances all round.