Reader Reviews
The Coast of Utopia: Salvage (Olivier (National Theatre), West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | I agree with your reviewer that T.S. might have been well advised to distill his vast volume of material into a single play- rather than a bloated, verbose, and self-indulgent trilogy (okay, maybe "Voyage" and "Shipwreck" were brilliant, but I wouldn't guess that from "Salvage"). I consider myself a Stoppard fan, and as an actor, had the great pleasure of playing James Joyce in the Chicago premier production of "Travesties" in 1979. But "Salvage" lacks the dizzying, complex cleverness of the earlier work. And it fails to compensate for that lack with any greater degree of profundity. To me it seemed merely episodic, sort of an educational slide show for the politically impaired. With the body-miked actors and the expensive but worthless rear projections, I half expected the new Buick to come wheeling out on that gigantic lazy susan ("lazy" is the operative word). Trevor Nunn directed "Les Miz?" Why doesn't that surprise me? It happened that earlier that day I had seen Mark Rylance's excellent "Twelfth Night" at the restored Globe- without body mikes, without rear projections, without a revolve, without even stage lighting- and the delight I and the rest of the Globe audience felt was utterly opposite to the stultifying boredom of "Salvage." I'd be tempted to comment that this demonstrated the deterioration of theatre in the last few hundred years, but that would be unfair: the same week, I was hugely entertained and edified not only by "Twelth Night," but by "Oh What a Lovely War" at Regents Park, and by "Edward III" at the RSC in Stratford. But, for me (despite the fine performances), "Salvage" just didn't work. - Rob Riley, Chicago - USER: Whatsonstage.com | 14 Aug 02 |
