Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
The programmes hadn’t arrived, so (most unusually for the Donmar) we got a simple black and white printed A4 foldy. Standards.
The play was very good indeed, though, as was the cast. The usual high production values for the Donmar too.
A bit slow, but then this IS a 19th century Russian story and it IS Brian Friel, whom we like very much, btw.
The critics on the whole shared our enjoyment of it – click here for a link to reviews.
In short, this was a good’n.
We were tending to book RNT things in preview or very early in runs, so this was an unusually late visit to see this one – perhaps we couldn’t get the seats we wanted until later or perhaps we missed it in the first block of dates.
Anyway, we thought this was “very good”.
One of our favourite troupes, Théâtre de Complicité, was responsible for this one. Juliet Stevenson played the lead along with Simon McBurney who also directed. The Theatricalia entry can be found here.
This was the first of those “in the round” productions that the RNT did at The Olivier while it was being refurbished.
Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard was not too keen on it:
Caucasian de Jongh Standard 22 Apr 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer in the Telegraph imagined that his cordial loathing of this show would be a minority view:
Caucasian Spencer Telegraph 23 Apr 1997, Wed The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Predictably, then, our friend Michael Billington loved it:
Caucasian Billington Guardian 23 Apr 1997, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
But Robert Butlet in The Independent didn’t much like it either:
Caucasian Butler Indy 27 Apr 1997, Sun The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Oh well.
Two visits to the Olivier Theatre with Bobbie in 48 hours. Just fancy. Must have been an availability thing and both of us wanting to see both plays.
In my log I wrote,
Good, but not as good as I had hoped it would be.
I seem to recall finding the play a bit wordy, a bit worthy and also some of the legal aspects a little unconvincing. I think the feedback from Bobbie’s legal entourage was similar on that last point when we ended up comparing notes.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.
Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for this play.
Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:
Billington Judges Judges Sat, Oct 12, 1991 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Below is Michael Coveney’s Observer review:
Coveney Judges Judges Sun, Oct 13, 1991 – 56 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
