57 replies to this topic

[Pharaoh's number 2]

Adrian Noble left relatively unscathed from last year's commercial flop, The King's Speech: Live on Stage. But this is a bigger job, definitely.

[Honoured Guest]

And AN recently directed Antony Sher as Prospero in The Tempest for Theatre Royal Bath.

[Epicoene]

Honoured Guest, on 30 January 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

And AN recently directed Antony Sher as Prospero in The Tempest for Theatre Royal Bath.

On the other hand the Hedda Gabler he directed was fully expected to transfer to the West End but then after some lukewarm reviews it didn't.

Sher played Prospero again did he ? Wasn't it Tim Pigott-Smith ?  It's not that long since Sher was pretty feeble in the African-themed Tempest that toured under the RSC banner.

[Honoured Guest]

Epicoene, on 31 January 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Sher played Prospero again did he ? Wasn't it Tim Pigott-Smith ?

Oh yes sorry - Antony Sher played in Hysteria immediately before TP-S in AN's Tempest. I get confused so easily nowadays - could be due to either flu or technical difficulties.

[Epicoene]

Honoured Guest, on 31 January 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

Oh yes sorry - Antony Sher played in Hysteria immediately before TP-S in AN's Tempest. I get confused so easily nowadays - could be due to either flu or technical difficulties.

I was willing to believe it, in the same way that Simon Russell-Beale keeps saying he wants to play Macbeth again after muffing it the first time around.

[Whenindisgrace]

Sher was Prospero in Bath three or four years ago, a South African production.  Very good, I thought.

Noble has had success elsewhere since the end of his RSC days:  Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria by Monterverdi at the Aix-en-Provence festival was highly acclaimed and the Vienna Staatsoper has had him to do Handel's Alcina.  But I imagine he'd like more work at home.

[Epicoene]

Whenindisgrace, on 31 January 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

Sher was Prospero in Bath three or four years ago, a South African production.  Very good, I thought.

Noble has had success elsewhere since the end of his RSC days:  Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria by Monterverdi at the Aix-en-Provence festival was highly acclaimed and the Vienna Staatsoper has had him to do Handel's Alcina.  But I imagine he'd like more work at home.

Opera doesn't count. His spell as artistic director of the San Diego Shakespeare festival was hardly headline artistic news.

[Poly]

Saw it Friday night and thought it was uneven. Some of it was definitely a preview thing, not technical issues per se, but not confident enough. It needs time but it has some very good stuff as well. In some ways I am jealous of the people who will see it later in the run because they get the better deal. If anyone is interested for more, I have written a review at my blog.

[mallardo]

Poly, your blog review is extremely eloquent and on the money and I must say I pretty much agree with you.

I saw this last night in a packed house -  is Antony Sher that popular? - and was left somewhat befuddled.  First, I couldn't help wondering what the late Carl Zuckmayer - co-screenwriter of The Blue Angel, no less - would have made of the technical extravaganza Adrian Noble has fashioned for his quirky comedy.  Everything the Olivier stage can do was on display here - floors rising and falling, turntable turning, huge expressionistic sets wheeled in from the wings - it was non stop.  In many ways it was the most interesting part of the show.

Zuckmayer certainly has his points to make about his native land, its fetish for bureaucratic rigidity and, especially, its quasi-religious reverence for a military uniform.  The play was written in 1931 and, of course, everything we see here resonates forward.  Sher is splendid as the put upon Wilhelm Voigt - a man who existed and did just what the play says he did - whose search for identity papers drives the plot.  He's not just a little Everyman but a complex character, by turns raging and accepting and not slow to betray a friend. In the second act a captain's uniform transforms him and Sher has great fun with this.  It's a tour de force role.

But is it funny?  It's a subjective thing, of course, but I didn't laugh much.  It's amusing in that it's all so absurdly true but two hours and forty minutes felt like a long stretch for this kind of material.  Perhaps Adrian Noble felt the same way which is why he tricked it up in such a lavish production.  In the end, I'm glad to have seen it.  I'll leave it there.

[Lynette]

O no, upsey downseys and roundaboutseys.