Still a la Fringe (et autre la Fete)
Aug. 11th, 2007 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_amberOh my lord. For those who follow the Tomster, his own account of his show so far..
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1623&id=1223432007
The Bedlam Theatre Oxford Uni version of Stoppard's Arcadia was superb, if very slightly rushed - it's such a dense text, it's like watching The West Wing without a rewind button. Almost two hours with no interval, take water in with you :-) Especially good parts taken by the young Thomasina (I didn't get the actor's names) and Lady Groom, played a little a la Catherine Tate I think. I saw the original London production in 93 and I think this Thomasina actually takes a better part than the pro actress on the London stage. The main female actress's approach is interestingly modelled, I think on Felicity Kendal, Stoppard's leading lady since the 90s, and predominant muse of the time. Proper thoughts on the actual text which is a tour de force on art, science, love, sex, history, literature, po-mo and fractal theory, to follow. I think it's a sell out , but if not, go!!
Then to The Bacchae at ye actual proper Festival, helas, with the much-trumpeted (hmm) Alan Cumming's bum, playing Dionysus the wine god as a Glasgow semi-transvstite dancer (from Olympia not Transylvania, but..). The Greek chorus are transformed into a Tamla Motown line up of glamorous black songstresses in shimmy red dresses, an inspired move (all the dull chorus stuff is turned into songs), and Cumming brilliantly uses his past associations with Glasgow panto and high camp to shift effectively between the louche and the threatening. Dionysus IS a rock god after all - and here that's how he's played, , mike, groin action and all, at least for the first hour or so. The staging is visually brilliant especially on an almost wholly uncluttered white stage (now i think about it, much of it looks like a White Stripes video), the eventual apparition of divinity revealed is almost perfectly done using intense lighting. But the pace drags - it's almost 2 hours with no interval (again! and even hotter! they do give you free paper fans as you go in..)and although David Greig's translation into quasi-Glasgow-gangster poetry is on the whole pithy and evocative, it's just too damn long, especially the "emo" 2nd half (this adjective somehow strikes me as just right suddenly for the Greek drama obsession with rending of garments and tearing of hair).
It was interesting seeing it with Andy who knew nothing of the Greek theatre tropes of all violence off stage, and of unity of place, theme and action. "Why does everything important get reported by someone else?" he said. Well, indeed. (MInd you JKR was still having problems with this in the last Harry Potter and she isn't even Greek.) In some ways this production for all its glitzy chorus is probably still too traditional. I certainly think they'd do better to cut some of the later lamentation scenes with Agave. It'd be interesting to hear what other classical scholars heading this way think of it (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
childeric?)
And on to traditional piss up with Shouting Book Club (part of) : talking loudly over each other, vilifying the Filmhouse wine list and showing each other phone cam pix. We'll all have lunch and go to see Warhol. Home sweet home:-)
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1623&id=1223432007
The Bedlam Theatre Oxford Uni version of Stoppard's Arcadia was superb, if very slightly rushed - it's such a dense text, it's like watching The West Wing without a rewind button. Almost two hours with no interval, take water in with you :-) Especially good parts taken by the young Thomasina (I didn't get the actor's names) and Lady Groom, played a little a la Catherine Tate I think. I saw the original London production in 93 and I think this Thomasina actually takes a better part than the pro actress on the London stage. The main female actress's approach is interestingly modelled, I think on Felicity Kendal, Stoppard's leading lady since the 90s, and predominant muse of the time. Proper thoughts on the actual text which is a tour de force on art, science, love, sex, history, literature, po-mo and fractal theory, to follow. I think it's a sell out , but if not, go!!
Then to The Bacchae at ye actual proper Festival, helas, with the much-trumpeted (hmm) Alan Cumming's bum, playing Dionysus the wine god as a Glasgow semi-transvstite dancer (from Olympia not Transylvania, but..). The Greek chorus are transformed into a Tamla Motown line up of glamorous black songstresses in shimmy red dresses, an inspired move (all the dull chorus stuff is turned into songs), and Cumming brilliantly uses his past associations with Glasgow panto and high camp to shift effectively between the louche and the threatening. Dionysus IS a rock god after all - and here that's how he's played, , mike, groin action and all, at least for the first hour or so. The staging is visually brilliant especially on an almost wholly uncluttered white stage (now i think about it, much of it looks like a White Stripes video), the eventual apparition of divinity revealed is almost perfectly done using intense lighting. But the pace drags - it's almost 2 hours with no interval (again! and even hotter! they do give you free paper fans as you go in..)and although David Greig's translation into quasi-Glasgow-gangster poetry is on the whole pithy and evocative, it's just too damn long, especially the "emo" 2nd half (this adjective somehow strikes me as just right suddenly for the Greek drama obsession with rending of garments and tearing of hair).
It was interesting seeing it with Andy who knew nothing of the Greek theatre tropes of all violence off stage, and of unity of place, theme and action. "Why does everything important get reported by someone else?" he said. Well, indeed. (MInd you JKR was still having problems with this in the last Harry Potter and she isn't even Greek.) In some ways this production for all its glitzy chorus is probably still too traditional. I certainly think they'd do better to cut some of the later lamentation scenes with Agave. It'd be interesting to hear what other classical scholars heading this way think of it (
childeric?)And on to traditional piss up with Shouting Book Club (part of) : talking loudly over each other, vilifying the Filmhouse wine list and showing each other phone cam pix. We'll all have lunch and go to see Warhol. Home sweet home:-)
