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Post by couldileaveyou on Nov 30, 2016 11:22:27 GMT
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Post by mallardo on Nov 30, 2016 11:39:18 GMT
Can't wait to see those Posh girls beat the landlord to within an inch of his life after assaulting his daughter (son?).
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Post by couldileaveyou on Nov 30, 2016 11:45:41 GMT
Can't wait to see those Posh girls beat the landlord to within an inch of his life after assaulting his daughter (son?). Modern day Bacchae! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 11:50:54 GMT
Obviously I'm ALL FOR cross-gender casting at any given time, but I think a very key part of this play is the culture of toxic masculinity, so hopefully they will be female actors playing male roles, and not gender-flipping the characters. But I wish them all the very best whatever they're doing.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 12:31:28 GMT
Yes yes yes!
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Post by Someone in a tree on Nov 30, 2016 13:26:05 GMT
Oh I'm excited about this
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 15:48:10 GMT
Well. They'll have a helluva mountain to climb to beat that original Royal Court cast. Wow. What a perfectly glorious bunch they were.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 21:17:39 GMT
I love this play. Why change it?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2016 22:49:22 GMT
They're not changing it. They're just using female actors. The text will remain exactly the same.
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Post by couldileaveyou on Mar 23, 2017 8:34:05 GMT
Previews start next week, I'm going on Thursday!
Hannah Murray from Skins and Game of Thrones was originally announced to play Alistar, but had to withdraw and Serena Jennings replaced her.
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Post by lonlad on Mar 23, 2017 9:27:23 GMT
So the women will be playing the characters as written - i.e. as men? That seems entirely counterintuitive (this isn't Glenda Jackson as LEAR!) but it makes nominally better sense than if the characters themselves were changed to be women, which would make a nonsense of Laura Wade's text. But given that the play was written and (initially) directed by women, surely if this is what had been intended, they would have done it first time round? Seems totally unnecessary.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 23, 2017 20:05:14 GMT
Amazing that they're paying the cast and crew peanuts, yet have posters everywhere on the tube.
That takes some balls from the producers.
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Post by Latecomer on Mar 23, 2017 20:10:47 GMT
So the women will be playing the characters as written - i.e. as men? That seems entirely counterintuitive (this isn't Glenda Jackson as LEAR!) but it makes nominally better sense than if the characters themselves were changed to be women, which would make a nonsense of Laura Wade's text. But given that the play was written and (initially) directed by women, surely if this is what had been intended, they would have done it first time round? Seems totally unnecessary. It's just like colour blind casting. Worked really well with Donmar Shakespeares. We still have a way to go to get equal numbers of men and women in good roles in theatre plays.....when we do have that perhaps you can come back with the "unnecessary" comment! It is just good actors playing good roles....they just happen to be women! And in a way it so is Glenda Jackson as Lear! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 22:26:46 GMT
Not entirely onside with the fact that they are using quotes from other productions of the play on their promotional materials... if everyone did that with revivals then you could probably cherry-pick any number of 5 star reviews.
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Post by couldileaveyou on Mar 30, 2017 22:38:35 GMT
They have a revolve. Who doesn't? I might get one for the living room one of these days, I'm starting to feel a bit left out.
And there was also the priceless moment when one of the gals threw her bike's keys, the other girl didn't catch them and they fell precisely in the revoleve's rail. Histerical laughters on and off stage, the show went on for five minutes and then they had to stop it and get out the keys before they destroyed the revolve. An instant classic.
There were some fine performances, especially Serena Jennings as Alistair, Verity Kirk as Ed and, my personal favourite, Sarah Thom as Jeremy/The Owner. The rest of the cast fluctuated between serviceable and too vague. The characters (apart from Rachel, the daughter/waitress) are still all male, this is not a Malvolia situation: they are all ladies in a tuxedo, like Weimar Republic's lesbians. Or, at least, they are women playing men most of the time, the direction is quite uncertain about this: they should really pick out a gender and stick to it for the whole time. Another let down was the trashing scene, they simply threw down some chairs. But, to be fair, there wasn't much to trash: the private room looks surprisingly like a mine, no wallpaper to tear down, no ornaments to smash, no glasses to break.
The real problem is that of all the plays this is the least suited for an all female cast, it deals too much with masculinity and casting women doesn't really offer a comment in this sense. Once I was talking with some friends and one said that she'd love to see an all female "Dead Poets Society", and other replied that they made one, it's "Mona Lisa Smile": Deat Poets is about many things, but one of them is masculinity and swapping pronouns is not enough to re-address the issue. Same for "Posh", it needed a massive rework to be effective in this new form.
It's a fantastic play and the second act works much better than the first one: the ten minutes after they call an ambulance are breathtaking. This production is not too bad, but it really needed a more focused direction and, probably, it wasn't the best play to experiment with genders in the first place.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2017 11:40:49 GMT
WoS - 2*
The Stage - 2*
The Times - 2*
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2017 11:44:08 GMT
Weirdly The Evening Standard gave it 4* but I'm pretty sure whomever reviewed it didn't actually see it as all they mention is it has a revolve
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Post by theatremadness on Apr 4, 2017 12:29:38 GMT
It does have a revolve! But yeah, hasn't gone down spectacularly well.
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Post by stevej678 on Apr 4, 2017 15:37:38 GMT
5* from The Independent.
The three 2* reviews surprise me. I thought this was well staged and brilliantly performed.
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Post by SageStageMgr on Apr 14, 2017 1:38:51 GMT
Left at the interval of yesterday's matinee. Knew within minutes it wasn't for me. The gender swapped gimmick felt completely unnecessary - and I'm not convinced the play is good enough to withstand such a bizarre creative decision. The stalls were sadly barely half full and I'm getting inundated with comp or very cheap ticket offers. Whilst I may have hated the hour or so I watched, I hope this has a market (maybe, somewhere) and it's never nice to see a show struggle, speaking as a theatre bod.
Incidentally, I didn't see the play staged "properly", where it had much stronger buzz and reviews. But I did see one of Laura Wade's earlier works "Alice", at the Sheffield Crucible, which I absolutely loathed, but stayed for the duration as I was on a review ticket. I freely admit therefore perhaps this playwright's style is simply not my cup of tea.
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