18 replies to this topic

[Lynette]

Bore bore bore, how right you are. It is not fast as the WOS review says but painfully slow. And loud. The How Loud Can We Shout ? school of acting. It might have gone down a storm in school halls all over the nation but it failed in the Cottesloe, scene of so many amazing shows like Lark Rise and the Miracles. Grusha was good, very promising , would like to see more of her work. But her crossing the bridge scene which is so important and dramatic was done in the dark with some heavy breathing. And what for goodness sake was that singer doing???

[Eve]

!

I really liked it - and the singer scared the beejesus out of me to start with but soon I really warmed to him. Have to admit I saw it in Canterbury and was rather ambivalent about it but what a change! Its completely transformed. Thoroughly good story telling and it so wasnt too loud.

Apparently the kids on tour have LOVED it so thats great.

[Job]

As the bloke who started the anti-CCC thread on the old board, I've been surprised to read so many positive and semi-positive reviews to its Cottesloe incarnation. But, like Eve, I saw it during its wretched Canterbury run right at the start of the tour (although, NB, that was not marketed as a preview run), so I can only assume that it's undergone major surgery betweentimes. Either that or I'm losing my ability to move with the times. I have to say that most of the school group I took to it (16-18, not 14-16 like so many in the GCSE-driven audience) loathed it as much as I did. They felt patronised. But that was then and this is now, I suppose.

Job

[Backdrifter]

At first I wasn't sure about it but I warmed to it. I ended up quite enjoying the sung links, and overall it didn't feel that long. I did think they took some of the impact away from the final judgement scene with the chalk circle, though, it seemed very downplayed.

When I saw that singer with his floppy fringe, stripy shirt and skinny tie, I thought what's he, a refugee from Franz Ferdinand? Then looked at his biog, where it said "has worked with Franz Ferdinand"! There's obviously a Franz Ferdinand "uniform".

[Backdrifter]

Don't get me started on the singer!  I couldn't work out if he was going for 80s style Marc Almond, Mod or Emo.  Whatever it was he failed on all counts.  If one is attempting to ape charismatic front men then it is usually necessary to have some charisma.

Hmmm, I'm not sure he was necessarily trying to do any of those things but it did come across as very early 80s to me, in a Bauhaus/David Sylvian sort of way with a dash of Nick Cave thrown in, but dressed in that throwback-to-late-70s-mod Secret Affair-type way.

[foxa]

Just got back from having taken a school group to it.  Overall, they liked it.  I wasn't so sure.

Really, really, really didn't like the singer. Not just him, but the tuneless songs, like a pretentious kid making up something in his bedroom. Thought there was no visual sense to it at all (I gather they scrapped a lot of videos), with sound equipment, etc. scattered around (I KNOW that was the concept, just think it's a tedious one.)  Kids and I liked Grusha.  Other teacher and I quite liked Azdak who suggested an interestingly rattled and tortured sensibility, but the kids mainly didn't, thinking the humour was too obvious (and these are 15 year olds - there was a laboured food spitting scene.)  I asked one girl  what she thought about the moment when it looked like Azdak might kiss Grusha and she said, 'Like....Ewwwww.'  Agree with the above comments about the useless heavy breathing to convey the crossing of the bridge.

However, the audience stuck with it and it is a fab play.  I don't think I ruined theatre-going forever for them.

[Welthorpe]

Yes, I rather liked it too. And the bridge scene worked OK for me. I thought Grusha was excellent. And somehow, while Filter's approach is distinctive, I felt that it was suitably Brechtian too. Having said that, i find much of Brecht a bit dated now - and I'm tempted to suggest that for all his historic importance, the risk of putting kids off theatre is more likely to come from the inclusion of the play on the sylabus rather than this production's quality. Although if pushed to suggest what I'd replace him with, I'd struggle, so don't ask!  

[Ben]

Bore bore bore, how right you are. It is not fast as the WOS review says but painfully slow. And loud. The How Loud Can We Shout ? school of acting. It might have gone down a storm in school halls all over the nation but it failed in the Cottesloe, scene of so many amazing shows like Lark Rise and the Miracles. Grusha was good, very promising , would like to see more of her work. But her crossing the bridge scene which is so important and dramatic was done in the dark with some heavy breathing. And what for goodness sake was that singer doing???

Wonder if you've ever read or seen the play before? Am assuming you have, you will therefore know that Brecht never wrote a bridge scene! What he did write was a scene in which Grusha steps onto and the reaches the other side.Brecht wasn't interested in how wonderfully clever the creators could be he was more interested in getting on with the story!!! He also dictates the level of volume with which he wants the singer to sing to convey the seriousness of the story he is trying to tell us.
   Have seen this production and was moved by the energy and anarchic spirit of the company and how wonderful it was to see a young company own and understand a play that the good Telegraph reading public would never understand in a million years. Lark Rise?? I ask you.