NT at Home part 10
Feb. 13th, 2023 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI've been managing to keep my NT at Home watchlist at about 6-7 plays, which means watching 2-3 a month as they add new shows. Thing is, we're really down to the dregs here.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
The Beaux’ Strategem
This is a slamming doors farce from the Restoration period (1707) by George Farquhar (what a name!). There is a plot about two bankrupt gentlemen who’ve decided that they must marry rich to alleviate their debts. Then there are rival gangs of highwaymen, a plot about Irish catholics posing a French prisoners of war, maids, balls, all of it. The play is noteworthy for the fact that the woman in one of the main couples is unhappily married and the play unabashedly argues for her ability to divorce her husband despite no one being unfaithful or physically abusive. Not quite a Feminism, but notable for its time.
The total scene stealer is Pearce Quigley as Scrub, a servant. Every one of his lines, his delivery is just so *chef’s kiss.* I don’t know what he was going for, but it takes a pretty bland part and makes it the best part of the play.
This is a minor entertainment, but I enjoyed it.
The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage
This is a perfectly cromulent production of an adaptation of a book that I have no idea why they adapted.
La Belle Sauvage is the first book in the as yet unfinished Book of Dust trilogy (hence the unwieldy title), which is itself a prequel to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Therefore the entire plot here is about getting baby Lyra to Oxford. Which would be somewhat more meaningful if I remembered that Lyra was the main character of The Golden Compass, a book I read twenty years ago. The play does a lot of hinting around Dust and daemons and alethiometers but with a basic assumption that you remember all these things from the previous books. It therefore contains a lot of adults explaining not only complicated concepts but ones that are meant to be SUPER SECRET to our 12-year old protagonist, Malcolm. It also means that the play ends when Lyra gets to Oxford, like a football reaching the end zone, and does not really have anything to do with a resolution of Malcolm’s story. But then Malcolm’s story was just an escort mission, so.
I just—why is this here. What a fucking weird thing to adapt. I know they adapted His Dark Materials 16 years ago, but without reviving that, you’re necessarily limited in audience to not just people who’d consumed His Dark Materials in some form but are also fans. It’s kind of worthless as a first entry to Pullman’s material.
It’s also really book shaped and not very play shaped. There are dozens of locations and hundreds of characters and, sure, it’s clever to adapt that, but that type of material is playing directly against the strengths of theater.
The daemons are paper puppets with lights in their heads. That’s cool I guess.
I mean, if you’re really really into His Dark Materials, it might be worth watching the adaptation, but only from a completionist standpoint. For me, I hated The Golden Compass and never read any of the others. And I’ve read enough of Pullman’s other work (I have read a surprising amount of Pullman, given that I didn’t like any of it—chalk it up to the doggedness of youth) to know he’s not just an atheist, but one who wants to justify clinging to the historical reality of Jesus while rejecting god—the appendix to his book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ makes clear that it is an argument for not just holding onto Jesus’s teachings but for continuing to believe in all his miracles, but with scientific explanations (hence the premise of that book, that Jesus had an identical twin, and this explains the resurrection sightings. A thing no other atheist I’ve known has felt the need to explain). In that context, I find his world building for His Dark Materials fucking weird. Like—noted, you hate the church, the Magesterium is a theocratic totalitarian state. But you’ve made that point in a world that literally has physical manifestations of the soul, and scientifically measurable matter generated by souls, and so the mistake of the Church is not in believing in things that aren’t there but in misattributing the actually real miracles that totally are there. It’s weird.
King Lear
I saw King Lear only once previously, the Derek Jacobi version at BAM in 2011, and hated it. The reviews at the time said that that version was a radical take, though, so worth another shot. Especially with Ian McKellan as the lead, a role he has played a LOT.
I still hate it.
Just—what’s the thesis of this show? Loyalty is the highest virtue, and loyalty to king, to father, and to husband are essentially the same and cannot be possessed without each other. Even when your king and father is a manipulative, cruel, destructive and murderous man who also has dementia. God forbid you should try to manage that guy or distance yourself from his toxicity. No no. That would prove your inherent unworthiness and of course be paralleled by faithlessness to your husband.
There is a story you could tell about what it’s like to have an abusive father who is also the king, or to have a father descending into dementia who has absolute power, but that’s not what this story is. And consequently I hate everyone and everything because moments that could show humanity are ultimately there to serve a pro-monarchy-at-any-cost stance.
Also, I see why men love playing the role of King Lear. It has incredible complexity. But the focus on that role in this play misses that the major female parts are sexist conglomerations of stereotypes. It takes something to look at a play and call it one of the greats when it’s only great for a single dude on stage and requires that dude be surrounded by shallow marionettes.
In this production, the most enjoyable scenes were with the bastard Edmond, if we could ignore the fact that he’s a villain simply because he’s a bastard. (Very much the Don John from Much Ado About Nothing school of villainy—“For I am a plain-dealing villain…If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.”)
The actress playing Regan is doing The Most. She appears to be in a different play than everyone else. She has made Choices, and while I won’t call them entertaining, they do serve as points of interest as the play grinds through its final acts.
I’m done with King Lear. I don’t need to see it again.
Romeo and Juliet
Hot take—I don’t really like Romeo and Juliet. Never have. This is a National Theatre film production, rather than a filmed stage production. It’s all acted in a set-less theater, with everyone in contemporary clothing. Most of it is shot in close up with shaky cam from odd angles—blurred shots, shots where the actors crop in and out of shot, shots of body parts. Lots and lots of montages of Romeo and Juliet running around and…playing tag or something? Something to convince us they have time to fall in love enough to kill themselves.
What I’m saying is, it’s not great as a production. Tamsin Grieg’s in it, so that’s nice. And Lucian Msamati too.
For Romeo and Juliet, I would generally point to the Franco Zeferelli production as the definitive, but the stars just sued the film for coercing them into filming nude when they were minors so…I think that movie goes in the vault. I think that leaves us with Romeo+Juliet as the definitive film version.
Yeah. Go watch some wet Leonardo DiCaprio instead of this.
Antony and Cleopatra
I didn’t so much watch this as have it on while I played Stardew Valley for three hours. Look—this is an exceptionally boring play. I’d failed to finish watching it when it was on the youtube channel back in 2020. Both Antony and Cleopatra are terribly unlikable. Their motivations throughout are nonsense. My knowledge of the history of the period actively works against me.
There was one moment when Ralph Fiennes as Antony botches his suicide, when the audience started laughing, and that’s never a good sign in a tragedy. Maybe different performances would have improved it? But I feel no need to ever consume this play again.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
The Beaux’ Strategem
This is a slamming doors farce from the Restoration period (1707) by George Farquhar (what a name!). There is a plot about two bankrupt gentlemen who’ve decided that they must marry rich to alleviate their debts. Then there are rival gangs of highwaymen, a plot about Irish catholics posing a French prisoners of war, maids, balls, all of it. The play is noteworthy for the fact that the woman in one of the main couples is unhappily married and the play unabashedly argues for her ability to divorce her husband despite no one being unfaithful or physically abusive. Not quite a Feminism, but notable for its time.
The total scene stealer is Pearce Quigley as Scrub, a servant. Every one of his lines, his delivery is just so *chef’s kiss.* I don’t know what he was going for, but it takes a pretty bland part and makes it the best part of the play.
This is a minor entertainment, but I enjoyed it.
The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage
This is a perfectly cromulent production of an adaptation of a book that I have no idea why they adapted.
La Belle Sauvage is the first book in the as yet unfinished Book of Dust trilogy (hence the unwieldy title), which is itself a prequel to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Therefore the entire plot here is about getting baby Lyra to Oxford. Which would be somewhat more meaningful if I remembered that Lyra was the main character of The Golden Compass, a book I read twenty years ago. The play does a lot of hinting around Dust and daemons and alethiometers but with a basic assumption that you remember all these things from the previous books. It therefore contains a lot of adults explaining not only complicated concepts but ones that are meant to be SUPER SECRET to our 12-year old protagonist, Malcolm. It also means that the play ends when Lyra gets to Oxford, like a football reaching the end zone, and does not really have anything to do with a resolution of Malcolm’s story. But then Malcolm’s story was just an escort mission, so.
I just—why is this here. What a fucking weird thing to adapt. I know they adapted His Dark Materials 16 years ago, but without reviving that, you’re necessarily limited in audience to not just people who’d consumed His Dark Materials in some form but are also fans. It’s kind of worthless as a first entry to Pullman’s material.
It’s also really book shaped and not very play shaped. There are dozens of locations and hundreds of characters and, sure, it’s clever to adapt that, but that type of material is playing directly against the strengths of theater.
The daemons are paper puppets with lights in their heads. That’s cool I guess.
I mean, if you’re really really into His Dark Materials, it might be worth watching the adaptation, but only from a completionist standpoint. For me, I hated The Golden Compass and never read any of the others. And I’ve read enough of Pullman’s other work (I have read a surprising amount of Pullman, given that I didn’t like any of it—chalk it up to the doggedness of youth) to know he’s not just an atheist, but one who wants to justify clinging to the historical reality of Jesus while rejecting god—the appendix to his book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ makes clear that it is an argument for not just holding onto Jesus’s teachings but for continuing to believe in all his miracles, but with scientific explanations (hence the premise of that book, that Jesus had an identical twin, and this explains the resurrection sightings. A thing no other atheist I’ve known has felt the need to explain). In that context, I find his world building for His Dark Materials fucking weird. Like—noted, you hate the church, the Magesterium is a theocratic totalitarian state. But you’ve made that point in a world that literally has physical manifestations of the soul, and scientifically measurable matter generated by souls, and so the mistake of the Church is not in believing in things that aren’t there but in misattributing the actually real miracles that totally are there. It’s weird.
King Lear
I saw King Lear only once previously, the Derek Jacobi version at BAM in 2011, and hated it. The reviews at the time said that that version was a radical take, though, so worth another shot. Especially with Ian McKellan as the lead, a role he has played a LOT.
I still hate it.
Just—what’s the thesis of this show? Loyalty is the highest virtue, and loyalty to king, to father, and to husband are essentially the same and cannot be possessed without each other. Even when your king and father is a manipulative, cruel, destructive and murderous man who also has dementia. God forbid you should try to manage that guy or distance yourself from his toxicity. No no. That would prove your inherent unworthiness and of course be paralleled by faithlessness to your husband.
There is a story you could tell about what it’s like to have an abusive father who is also the king, or to have a father descending into dementia who has absolute power, but that’s not what this story is. And consequently I hate everyone and everything because moments that could show humanity are ultimately there to serve a pro-monarchy-at-any-cost stance.
Also, I see why men love playing the role of King Lear. It has incredible complexity. But the focus on that role in this play misses that the major female parts are sexist conglomerations of stereotypes. It takes something to look at a play and call it one of the greats when it’s only great for a single dude on stage and requires that dude be surrounded by shallow marionettes.
In this production, the most enjoyable scenes were with the bastard Edmond, if we could ignore the fact that he’s a villain simply because he’s a bastard. (Very much the Don John from Much Ado About Nothing school of villainy—“For I am a plain-dealing villain…If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.”)
The actress playing Regan is doing The Most. She appears to be in a different play than everyone else. She has made Choices, and while I won’t call them entertaining, they do serve as points of interest as the play grinds through its final acts.
I’m done with King Lear. I don’t need to see it again.
Romeo and Juliet
Hot take—I don’t really like Romeo and Juliet. Never have. This is a National Theatre film production, rather than a filmed stage production. It’s all acted in a set-less theater, with everyone in contemporary clothing. Most of it is shot in close up with shaky cam from odd angles—blurred shots, shots where the actors crop in and out of shot, shots of body parts. Lots and lots of montages of Romeo and Juliet running around and…playing tag or something? Something to convince us they have time to fall in love enough to kill themselves.
What I’m saying is, it’s not great as a production. Tamsin Grieg’s in it, so that’s nice. And Lucian Msamati too.
For Romeo and Juliet, I would generally point to the Franco Zeferelli production as the definitive, but the stars just sued the film for coercing them into filming nude when they were minors so…I think that movie goes in the vault. I think that leaves us with Romeo+Juliet as the definitive film version.
Yeah. Go watch some wet Leonardo DiCaprio instead of this.
Antony and Cleopatra
I didn’t so much watch this as have it on while I played Stardew Valley for three hours. Look—this is an exceptionally boring play. I’d failed to finish watching it when it was on the youtube channel back in 2020. Both Antony and Cleopatra are terribly unlikable. Their motivations throughout are nonsense. My knowledge of the history of the period actively works against me.
There was one moment when Ralph Fiennes as Antony botches his suicide, when the audience started laughing, and that’s never a good sign in a tragedy. Maybe different performances would have improved it? But I feel no need to ever consume this play again.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-21 06:45 pm (UTC)