Babygirl/ Dna/ Miracle

#1 Guest_Eve_*

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Posted 21 February 2008 - 09:39 PM

Has anyone seen yet? Was thinking about going and wondered what the gist was on the different plays...?

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#2 foxa

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Posted 21 February 2008 - 11:18 PM

Hi Eve,

Saw DNA and The Miracle on Tuesday night and Baby Girl and The Miracle tonight and am still deciding what I think about them...I think the shows are still in previews so the usual caveats apply. I could see a major change in The Miracle between tonight and Tuesday's performance (to do with the projections.)

I enjoyed the Baby Girl/Miracle double-bill more, but that may have been because I was with a teenager tonight and that is clearly the target audience. Although enjoyable enough, I wouldn't say either evening is as strong as Chatroom/Citizenship double-bill of last year.

The plays: DNA: a group of teenagers reveal that something unfortunate has happened to one of them. The brain of the group devises a plan...
Baby Girl: Young girl gets pregnant at around the same age as her mother had become pregnant with her.
The Miracle: A flood gives an unusual girl mysterious powers to heal - or does it?

In reading them, I had really liked DNA, but found the production rather disappointing and flat, whereas Baby Girl played better than it read.

Projections are used as a backdrop for each production - a mistake, I thought.

Some v. good performances with some of the actors looking sooooooo young.

A pleasant evening out, but not unmissable.

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#3 armadillo

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Posted 24 February 2008 - 09:17 PM

Not as good as Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship, I thought, and probably each could have lost 10 minutes. If you see all three in one evening, as I did, don't expect to get out before about 10.45. Baby Girl didn't get much audience reaction and DNA clearly shocked a lot of the older audience (including me). I thought that Miracle Girl was the weakest. As Foxa says, not unmissable and none of the performances really stood out.

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#4 josh

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Posted 24 February 2008 - 11:06 PM

QUOTE(armadillo @ Feb 24 2008, 09:17 PM)

DNA clearly shocked a lot of the older audience (including me).

Can you say why??

He used to call me — Blue Roses.

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#5 Guest_loneranger_*

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Posted 24 February 2008 - 11:16 PM

QUOTE(armadillo @ Feb 24 2008, 09:17 PM)

I found it to be a great evening out. Really good moving plays that did not patronise it's target audience at all. I felt Baby Girl not get much audience reaction because the audience were realy listening and entranced by the story that was told to them. It is not easy holding the attenton of a young audience, and I felt these plays did a grand job. Too much youth theatre is played for laughs I think. These plays treated it's audience with respect and assumed they all had a brain.

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#6 Guest_cooltheatreguy_*

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Posted 29 February 2008 - 05:08 PM

QUOTE(Eve @ Feb 21 2008, 09:39 PM)

Has anyone seen yet? Was thinking about going and wondered what the gist was on the different plays...?

it was superb 10/10

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#7 Guest_Skylight_*

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Posted 12 April 2008 - 12:17 AM

These have finished now but I'll just add that I thought they were excellent. Miracle was the weakest (I found the actress playing the narrator annoying and the structure of the play was a cop out - it would have been fine on the radio but on stage I want to see the story not someone telling me the story) but Ruby Bentall is so brilliant that I could have watched it again just for her.

Foxa some of the Baby Girl cast are in year 9 (that's 3rd year for those of us who remember O levels).

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#8 foxa

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Posted 13 April 2008 - 10:04 AM

QUOTE(Skylight @ Apr 12 2008, 01:17 AM)

Foxa some of the Baby Girl cast are in year 9 (that's 3rd year for those of us who remember O levels).

No wonder they look so young!!!

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#9 Guest_Skylight_*

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Posted 13 April 2008 - 11:18 PM

Am I the only person who thought the NT presented these plays as though they were new and written for the NT?

The other day I read a biog of an actor who had appeared in DNA previously and this link - http://nwdaf.com/news/archive/07-03-14_newsletter.pdf (bottom of page 3) confirms that it was an existing play.

It may not be incredibly important but why make out it's a new play when it isn't?

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#10 josh

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Posted 14 April 2008 - 12:09 AM

QUOTE(Skylight @ Apr 14 2008, 12:18 AM)

They were new and written for the NT - as in written for the Connections young people program. It's the same thing that happened with Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship, no? The NT give a professional production to the plays which were previously performed by youth theatre groups etc...

He used to call me — Blue Roses.