Not David Mamet’s best play, but even modest Mamet on the subject of Race provides plenty tension and interesting drama. We needed to suspend belief a little too much on this one – as is the way with lesser Mamet.
Perhaps the irritating pun in the title should have warned us off this one – but we like the Orange Tree and the cast included some excellent Orange Tree regulars so we went for it.
We found this a tame, irritating comedy on the whole. We stuck it out – it wasn’t that bad – but it wasn’t that good either and we felt it could have been so much better.
It is often a mistake for an playwright to direct their own play – especially with comedy – this one was an object lesson for that theory.
We thought this was a very interesting and engrossing night at the theatre.
Ayad Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize for drama with this visceral play about a Muslim corporate lawyer, Amir, in New York, whose life unravels during a dinner party.
Amir is a Westernised Muslim, who admits to feeling anti-Israel, on largely “tribal” grounds. But is Amir’s position anti-Semitic and is this issue the cause of his corporate undoing and more?
Although Disgraced (like Checkpoint Chana) rather unrealistically rushes the central character’s disintegration, it emerges from a far more subtle and interesting debate. It is also a far better piece of drama.
Excellent cast and production for Disgraced at the Bush too.
Occasionally an evening of theatre is so different and electrifying it sticks permanently in your memory as one of our very best theatre experiences. Janie and I both feel that way about A Human Being Died That Night.
The play is based on a book by Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, describing her work as a member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission interviewing Eugene de Kock, who had been jailed for his murderous role in the apartheid regime.
We attended the first ever performance of this play, at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.
The downstairs lobby area is actually part of the performance space. We were told to sit around and wait, then the character of Pumla Gobodo-Madikiezla, played by Noma Dumezweni does a sort of presentation for us, explaining the background to her involvement and the effect that her interactions with de Kock had on her…
…then she invites us to join her to witness her experiences and leads us into the main downstairs studio space, which is an interview space in the prison where de Kock (played by Matthew Marsh) is incarcerated.
Below is a vid of an interview with the two main actors when the production was revived at the Hampstead the following year:
Below is a short, sharp vid of an interview with Noma when the play transferred to New York:
In the four years inbetween, Esfahani had become a real name in the early music world and here was an opportunity for us to see a recital of interesting stuff at very close quarters.
All Byrd in the first half – absolutely enchanting. The second half captivated us a little less – mostly familiar material from Bach’s Musical Offering (played beautifully) – we didn’t really see how the Ligeti fitted in with the Byrd and Bach. We love Hungarian folk music; the style just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the programme, which was so relaxing. But that’s just us.
