Synopsis Whisking us down a rabbit hole and into a wonderland-like world, Gross und Klein transports us to a hotel dining room in Morocco where Lotte (Blanchett) sits alone. Courageously optimistic and perpetually disappointed Lotte is in constant search for human connection. She is rejected by her husband, unrecognised by old friends and unfamiliar with her family. Whether she is outside a window peeping in or buzzing on an unanswered intercom this iconic protagonist never quite fits. Like Carroll's Alice, sometimes Lotte is too big for her surroundings and sometimes too small to be noticed within them. Co-commissioned by the Barbican, London and London 2012 Festival using funds from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, Theatre de la Ville Paris and Wiener Festwochen. Part of London 2012 Festival
Feeling at ease with alienation is such fun, especially when Cate Blanchett is back on the London stage leading the Sydney Theatre Company in a new version by Martin Crimp of Big & Small, Botho Strauss’s story of a graphic designer called Lotte, all at sea in modern Germany.
Blanchett is one of the great actors of our day. On stage as well as on screen, she is like a thoroughbred hunting horse, a Grand National favourite, whinnying at the start and leaping the hurdles with grace and beauty throughout a show that, while testing, is not really all that rewarding. Is it not really all a little vieux chapeau?
I acclaimed the 1978 play when it was a surprising and adventurous West End vehicle for Glenda Jackson in 1983. Glenda, not yet my Labour MP, ran the gamut of disoriented victim, social misfit and grumbling old bag lady pushed from pillar to post by an uncaring society in a production which had great beauty and eloquence.
If nothing else, I suppose Strauss’s play, Gross und Klein, justifies Germany losing the last war and paying the price. Blanchett careens through the ten scenes without too much regard for social niceties, and small regard for her husband, presenting a picture of spirited dislocation, survival instinct and critical know-how.
[WOS_QU@TE]#Blanchett is as fleshy, sinewy and aghast as a Lucian Freud painting in an illuminated telephone box#[/WOS_QU@TE]She’s as fleshy, sinewy and aghast as a Lucian Freud painting in an illuminated telephone box and as physically sensual - and wonderfully expressive - as a Pina Bausch dancer in madly declaiming that she’s one of the righteous people determined to save the world.
But saving the world from what? More plays by Botho Strauss, perhaps. You can’t really believe that these versatile and likeable Australian actors have all that much in common with downtown Essen or wherever, nor does Martin Crimp’s translation succeed in making the crises and mishaps seem like a play for today.
These are old-fashioned, unexciting avant-garde leftovers, despite the slick ingenuity of Benedict Andrews’s production and a design by [Johannes Schütz] that whisks us from a hotel lobby in Morocco to a stairwell in a block of Teutonic flats where Lotte continues not making connections and an office where she plays secretarial second fiddle to a new boyfriend by dancing all over his paperwork.
All hail Cate Blanchett. But it seems regrettable that this great performer hasn’t marked the opening of the London 2012 Festival (prior to then London Olympics) with something either much more classical or much more contemporary. Or better.
Big & Small’s big draw is its movie star lead – Cate Blanchette – and she is an extraordinarily good stage actor. Sadly, her vehicle here is a load of pretentious bollocks about a woman searching for meaning in her life. I will allow the director’s quotes in the programme to sum it up as I can’t – ‘It alludes simultaneously to the spiritual and political dimensions of life; macro / micro, cosmos / cell, state / individual, history / present, eternity / now. The expansion and contraction of being…..the seemingly fragmented de-centred dramatrugy…..the slow-motion detonation of character and narrative…..the existential puzzle…..the play offers a radical perspective on society. Lotte’s odyssey confronts us with the limits of rational order. She is a stranger in her own culture. A fool and a saint dancing on the rim of the abyss. As I said, bollocks. - Gareth James
02 May 12
Baffled by this review but then Michael has seen it before (and far more other stuff besides). Blanchett is phenomenal but I loved the play too, and what one other commenter here calls his "reduced" reading I not only shared but also think it is actually a more expansive and universal reading. I can't understand why more theatre here doesn't play around with ideas of how we tell stories like this did, given that it was both strange and absurd yet thoroughly clear and heartbreaking too. I can't think of anyone I wouldn't take to see it. - Jon Bradfield
27 Apr 12
The play is absurdist nonsense that tries to make a few very dated and heavy-handed points about middle class life that, at least in 2012 Britain, provoke more eye rolling than thought. But the entire cast is terrific, the staging wonderful, and Blanchett gives the most amazing performance I have ever seen. She is funny and sad and uses her physicality in ways I never knew she had. People bandy about the term 'revelation' such that it seems hollow now, but she blew me away- and everyone else I noticed in the audience. A two star play (it has a few nicely observed moments and more humour than I expected, mostly in the first half) genuinely deserves four stars do to a cast that punches way beyond the light weight of the material. - Scott A
26 Apr 12
Can't add any more than my tweet is just posted
Saw worst play ever last night #bigandsmall at #barbican only #cateblanchett any good #incomprehensible classic case of #emperorsclothes - Jeff Barnes
22 Apr 12
I was far more engaged with this play than other Whatsonstage readers below. Possibly because I had a somewhat reductive reading of it. Yes, I know it's a picaresque study of one gobby woman's inability to make a connection with anybody. I know it's meant to be an existential wander through a post war disaffected alienated Germany. I know it's about the loneliness we all feel, and just can't quite bridge. So in this play, everybody just gets fed up of poor Lotte. Even you may want her to stop saying everything is "amazing" if you see this. But for me, this is what asperger's syndrome is often like, where a person can't stop talking about their obsessions while everybody else gets bored and turned off, and unfortunately the speaker has not the sensitivity to know she is boring her audience. So on account of making that link in my mind, the play assumed a richness I assume other theatregoers did not feel. I'll be interested to see what the National's upcoming "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" has to say about aspergers too. And Cate Blanchett is excellent in this. The way she physically and psychically breaches the boundaries of the characters she comes across (including Lotte's own family members) makes for fascinating, and occasionally heartbreaking viewing. She is also very funny. Maybe I just like Blanchett, but she made this play, in which there are no real emotional connections between any characters at all (and hence little internal drama) seem quite excellent. :) - steveatplays
21 Apr 12
I didn't enjoy it... Cate must be doing it to fill the coffers of her Sydney Theatre Company, I guess. - David
20 Apr 12
I recently read an article bemoaning the fact that we don't see much modern European theatre over here. The problem is that when we do it's dreadful stuff like Fram, the unspeakable I Am the Wind and now this incomprehensible, pretentiouis arthouse rubbish. Cate Blanchett is joint Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company where this terible production originated so she has to accept her share of the blame even if her performance was the only decent thing on display. Presumably her presence was the reason for putting this on at such a large theatre and it might have been interesting to see how many bothered to come back after the interval. I'll never know as I could not face any more of a play that made no attempt to convey any form of meaningful narrative. - David Baxter
19 Apr 12
I am so tired of star vehicles!
Yes Cate Blanchet is good and the play could have benefited from a much smaller intimate space I love surreal plays but this is shallow and pretentious crap!
Could bare to stay for second half - ruth posner
19 Apr 12
Quite, quite dreadful. Emperor's new clothes. A complete waste of time and money. - F Hill
19 Apr 12
I simply could not keep my eyes off Blanchett.
True the play is a tough one: are we supposed to buy into the existential high-art that no doubt many people believe this is?
Still 5 stars though: superb, purely based on her phenomenal performance. - John de Vos
See also The Pit. Opened 1982. The Barbican is home to the internationally acclaimed bite programme, featuring a diverse range of the most exciting new theatre, dance and music from around the world. Bite has established firm relationships with leading international artists and its impressive list of Artistic Associates includes; Deborah Warner, Michael Clark Company, Cheek by Jowl, Fabulous Beast and Afroreggae UK Partnership. Whilst continuing to support the work of established companies, bite seeks to enable young and emerging artists to present work at the Barbican. Recent bite seasons have included music from the favelas of Rio, Shakespeare from Japan, an Icelandic Peer Gynt, puppetry from Canada, traditional dance from Cambodia and cabaret from South London. Bite work extends beyond the 1166-seat Barbican Theatre and the 200-seat Pit into non-traditional spaces, often blurring the boundaries between performer and audience and enabling an even greater number of people to enjoy its programme.
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