Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead - Complicité

[princeton]

Barbican Centre website still says: "Following Kathryn Hunter’s sudden illness, Amanda Hadingue will perform the role of Janina while Kathryn makes a full recovery" but don't know whether they are updating that on a day-to-day basis

[oxfordsimon]

Unless you are the most ardent Hunter fan, I think you will not be disappointed by the replacement.

Whilst I have issues with the piece, that was nothing to do with the central performance

[mjh]

Kathryn Hunter was back for today’s matinee.

Running time is down to 2hr50 as well.

[Dave B]

MJH beat me to two of the things I was going to comment about today's matinee.

Kathryn Hunter was on auto-prompter and reading her lines pretty much throughout. Very distracting and very noticeable from the front row. She also seemed exhausted by the end, a long supportive cast hug/grouping in the wings just visible as I was leaving.

I kinda liked it, I liked more of the staging than the script. It felt too long and I found myself way more interested in the stylisation and the visuals. A big standing O at the end but.. yeah, really not so sure why to be honest.

[alessia]

I saw the matinée yesterday and I loved it, my friend did too. Discussing it afterwards we thought it wasn't just about animal rights but also and maybe more, about ageism and misogyny, and rebelling against the big patriarchal powers, all men (the priest, the policeman, the president, the hunter) and how the older woman is treated (mocked or ignored depending on the situation) by society.
I had never seen a Complicité show before and thought it was brilliant. It is long but I never felt bored and it is very funny throughout. Maybe it helped that it was the afternoon rather than evening!

[Forrest]

Mar 19, 2023 8:53:32 GMT Steve said:

As a play about whether meat is murder, the play doesn't really succeed. It so obviously biased, with it's magnification of Janina's perspective (even resorting to shock tactic projected imagery of the sort you'd see in animal rights pamphlets).

What the production really does succeed in is showing us how people live in their own constructed worlds, how these worlds can clash, and how simultaneously funny and tragic that can be.

And, as often, not much to add to this.

I most liked the angle of her character being too small, and even more so too old to be noticeable, as admitting them felt quite radical in a way. 
The "meat is murder" part was the bit about this that mildly annoyed me: it was too blunt to be thought-provoking, and just felt kind of religious, but I would assume that's exactly what they wanted (especially as there are some arguably anti-church elements in the play in contrast), although I cannot quite pinpoint why. (I'm also still pondering Janina's obsession with horoscopes, and these things are likely connected. Is she no better than those who blindly follow religion, rooting her actions in a similar kind of misguided belief system? Are her beliefs, and not the fact that she is old, a socially acceptable reason to discredit her?)

I thought the staging was brilliant, although not too friendly for us with cheap seats. It really added a lot to the experience.
I also found the reading distracting, but I guess it really is a lot of material to go through and (too much) to memorize.

But I did like this, more than I thought I would based on the feedback here.   

[circelily]

Saw this tonight and really enjoyed it. Staging was excellent and possibly best casting of a lead ever. Seriously she is perfect.

[crowblack]

Livestreamed from The Lowry Manchester on Thursday, Friday and Saturday through the Bristol Old Vic's site.

[crowblack]

How far in is the interval?

[mkb]

Apr 26, 2023 17:09:21 GMT crowblack said:

How far in is the interval?

I haven't had time to write up my four-star opinion, but the running time in Coventry last Wednesday was as follows:

Act 1: 19:34-21:00
Act 2: 21:25-22:31

[og]

I loved this last night in Salford. As others have mentioned it's not exactly subtle with its message, and it seemed to divide people with a few very fidgety people and non-returners post interval. But for those invested in the story and it's presentation it was an intense and captivating piece. Impressively tight technically. Kathryn Hunter is an absolute powerhouse, effectively performing a 3 hour monologue interspersed with some dialogue, hardly stopping for air.
It was dark, raw and gripping. Stellar.

[crowblack]

Apr 26, 2023 21:47:01 GMT mkb said:

Apr 26, 2023 17:09:21 GMT crowblack said:

How far in is the interval?

I haven't had time to write up my four-star opinion, but the running time in Coventry last Wednesday was as follows:

Act 1: 19:34-21:00
Act 2: 21:25-22:31

Thank you! 

[crowblack]

Watched it tonight on the livestream from the Lowry. Overall there's a lot to admire, especially Kathryn Hunter's powerhouse performance. It is too long though, and whilst I'm very sympathetic to the themes, I found the first half quite tiring and repetitive in its heightened tone, until the relative levity of the dopesmoking bit just before the interval. The second half, with more stage action and humour, was more engaging. To those on here who didn't see it with Hunter, here's your chance. It is still around 3 hours (started around 7.30 with a brief intro by Simon McBurney, interval 9 to about 9.15-ish, ended 10.30)

[harry]

Apr 27, 2023 22:04:20 GMT crowblack said:

Watched it tonight on the livestream from the Lowry. Overall there's a lot to admire, especially Kathryn Hunter's powerhouse performance. It is too long though, and whilst I'm very sympathetic to the themes, I found the first half quite tiring and repetitive in its heightened tone, until the relative levity of the dopesmoking bit just before the interval. The second half, with more stage action and humour, was more engaging. To those on here who didn't see it with Hunter, here's your chance. It is still around 3 hours (started around 7.30 with a brief intro by Simon McBurney, interval 9 to about 9.15-ish, ended 10.30)

I’m interested in how this translates on live-stream. I found myself completely drawn in but certainly a lot of that (as well as Kathryn Hunter and her fantastic presence) was to do with the lighting and sound. I really noticed how dark the whole theatre and auditorium was most of the time, with very carefully placed pinpoints of lights. And stark moments where we are lit and literally reflected back on ourselves. Plus the rather startling and loud sound design.

Not saying that that couldn’t translate but I’m interested to know if it did? I reckon I’d have found it much easier to be distracted or slightly less engaged if I wasn’t in that pitch black room(and if I had my TV speakers set at a pleasant volume) and with all focus drawn to this tiny woman commanding the space.

[crowblack]

Apr 28, 2023 9:59:55 GMT harry said:

Not saying that that couldn’t translate but I’m interested to know if it did? I reckon I’d have found it much easier to be distracted or slightly less engaged if I wasn’t in that pitch black room(and if I had my TV speakers set at a pleasant volume) and with all focus drawn to this tiny woman commanding the space.

I haven't seen it live on stage so can't really compare it. In some ways I feel I missed out on the sense of space, creatures or characters emerging from the dark woods and so forth as the camera was close in on Hunter and her companions for much of the time, especially in the first half, though as I'm short sighted I rather appreciate that close up aspect of livestreams!

[crowblack]

A recording of the Lowry performance is made available to stream on demand for a time.

[max]

May 24, 2023 21:01:39 GMT crowblack said:

A recording of the Lowry performance is made available to stream on demand for a time.

Via the Bristol Old Vic website.

Early bird booking is £9.99 until midnight Sun 11th June, then rises to 11.99

The viewing window is from 00.01 BST on Mon 12 June until 23.59 BST on Sun 18 June.

Within that time you have 48hrs to watch it, from the first time you click the video.