Post by Sotongal on Nov 15, 2019 13:58:11 GMT
Anyone else seen My Cousin Rachel yet, or planning to see it?
We saw it on its first night in Bath and first night of the tour.
Quite enjoyed it, mainly because I am familiar with and know that it's a good story.
Allowing for first night nerves, my thoughts are -
The set doesn't quite work and hampers the flow at times. This is mainly because there is a massive, narrowerish staircase which rises from stage right to the top of a sort of tower stage left. The set is on a revolve, so facing one way it's the interior hall of the Ashley family home, but then spins round to be a bridge facing the sea. So, at various times the cast have to trek up and down the stairs, which isn't too difficult for the male cast (wearing trousers!) but left Helen George, in her long frocks, trying to pull up the front of the dress so she could get up the steps, sometimes also trying to carry a candle and other things at the same time, (at one point she, understandably dropped something). She badly needs wrist loops on those dresses, so she can hitch them up!
(Having seen the NT version of Macbeth which had a massive slope across the stage, it sort of dominated, wrongly, in the same way.)
My main thoughts on Helen George is that she's too much of an English Rose in the role of Rachel, who's supposed to be an Italian Countess by birth. She wasn't quite foreign/exotic/enigmatic enough, though maybe that will come as the tour continues?
Jack Holden, as Philip Ashley, grew in confidence as the drama continued. The rest of the cast were also very good,with a special shout out for Simon Shepherd as Nicholas Kendall, who was excellent at enunciating and projecting his voice.
Did feel though, that the roughly two hours of the drama doesn't give much time to show how Philip, at the age of 24, who has grown up in a completely male household and who thinks Rachel has poisoned her husband (his cousin) then becomes completely enamoured with her and believes she can do no wrong.
Would be interesting to see how different/same this is later in the tour.
We saw it on its first night in Bath and first night of the tour.
Quite enjoyed it, mainly because I am familiar with and know that it's a good story.
Allowing for first night nerves, my thoughts are -
The set doesn't quite work and hampers the flow at times. This is mainly because there is a massive, narrowerish staircase which rises from stage right to the top of a sort of tower stage left. The set is on a revolve, so facing one way it's the interior hall of the Ashley family home, but then spins round to be a bridge facing the sea. So, at various times the cast have to trek up and down the stairs, which isn't too difficult for the male cast (wearing trousers!) but left Helen George, in her long frocks, trying to pull up the front of the dress so she could get up the steps, sometimes also trying to carry a candle and other things at the same time, (at one point she, understandably dropped something). She badly needs wrist loops on those dresses, so she can hitch them up!
(Having seen the NT version of Macbeth which had a massive slope across the stage, it sort of dominated, wrongly, in the same way.)
My main thoughts on Helen George is that she's too much of an English Rose in the role of Rachel, who's supposed to be an Italian Countess by birth. She wasn't quite foreign/exotic/enigmatic enough, though maybe that will come as the tour continues?
Jack Holden, as Philip Ashley, grew in confidence as the drama continued. The rest of the cast were also very good,with a special shout out for Simon Shepherd as Nicholas Kendall, who was excellent at enunciating and projecting his voice.
Did feel though, that the roughly two hours of the drama doesn't give much time to show how Philip, at the age of 24, who has grown up in a completely male household and who thinks Rachel has poisoned her husband (his cousin) then becomes completely enamoured with her and believes she can do no wrong.
Would be interesting to see how different/same this is later in the tour.
