The Low Road by Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 23 March 2013

Gosh, this one didn’t really work for us, although we thought it would. We like Bruce Norris’s plays and the Royal Court was serving up a stellar collection of cast and creatives.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource for this production.

To some extent we were unlucky – we’d booked an early preview and the mechanically complicated set had encountered some technical problems. We were kept waiting 30 minutes or more for a delayed start…

…for a play that we knew was quite long anyway…

…and at that time we were more easily pleased by short, sharp (and possibly less challenging) pieces.

But the other problem I had with this piece was the rather obvious way that points about the financial crisis and subsequent political/economic responses were rather obviously rammed down our throats.

Also, the play latched onto one of my bugbears which is the misrepresentation of Adam Smith’s subtle body of work into an unkind representation of all that is coldly economic.

It all felt a bit “tell rather than show”, which detracted from the drama, which is probably why the Drama 101 text book suggests “show rather than tell”.

Below is the trailer vid…

…and below this line is a behind the scenes vid:

It was all very clever and the cast was excellent, but by half time – pushing towards 22:00 already, we decided to give the second half a miss. After all, I had the script in my hand and could pretty well work out what was likely to happen.

Decidedly mixed reviews – really divided the critics, this piece – this link will take you to a search term that finds the reviews good and bad.

Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 4 September 2010

I was really taken with this play and production by the excellent Bruce Norris, about racial tension in a Chicago neighbourhood across the generations. It is witty and thought provoking in equal measure, tackling difficult topics with clarity and sensitivity.

Superb cast and this style of play marries well with Dominic Cooke’s style of direction.

Janie liked it too, but was a little less impressed than me.

Here is the Royal Court resource on this play/production.

It got rave reviews, west end transfer, revivals and all sorts – deservedly so. So you need to look through the reviews in the following link – click here – with care and choose the ones dated around September 2010 to see reviews of the actual production we saw – but you might want to look at reviews generally – in which case dip away with reckless abandon.

The Pain and the Itch, Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 22 June 2007

We really enjoyed this play.  I think it was the first Bruce Norris play we saw and it certainly motivated us to look out for his plays.

We were due to see it on Saturday 23 June, but then realised that the only Saturday that made sense for a Worm family birthday celebration was that Saturday. The Royal Court very kindly swapped the seats for us at no charge, despite my insistence that the booking error was my fault. “That’s what friends are for,” was the response. I wish more arts organisations treated the term “friend” thus.

Excellent cast, with Matthew Macfadyen, Andrea Riseborough and Amanda Boxer perhaps the most memorable.

The Royal Court archive tells it all, including substantial extracts from the mostly excellent reviews – click here.