An American classic, performed on a very sparse set in a sort-of workshop style.
It worked for us.
There are elements of this play that could easily seem cheesy to the modern and non-US audience, yet this production managed to avoid the worst excesses of fromage and mawkishness – the piece came across to us as charming and touching.
It all felt very different on arrival at the theatre, with the space transformed for this piece and entrances to the space where audiences normally fear to tread.
But the piece itself never really took off into the stratosphere as perhaps it should.
We heard a lot from the good-hearted middle class people who felt conflicted by the riots and/or tried to help those who got into difficulties during the chaos. We heard less from the rioters themselves.
To be fair on Alecky Blythe, she took the orthodox view on the play and stuck only to the verbatim material she could gather at the time, so I suppose that would be weighted towards those slightly safer situations…
…not least because people are not normally full of conversation while rioting…
…I imagine; not ever having been in the heart of a riot personally.
We really didn’t like this play. I can see from the reviews that it was a “marmite” show.
The problems we had with it were many and varied.
We struggled to suspend belief for the notion that a disaster of the kind described could lead the USA into an autarkic breakdown of society. (Mind you, writing three-and-a-half-years later…)
We struggled to engage with the characters, who were a little too “everyman/no man” for us.
We struggled with the length of the play.
We (or certainly I) found every twist and change predictable and obvious…so much so, that, during the second interval, although we had not looked at a synopsis or review before our visit, I told Janie what the third part was bound to be about…and (by all accounts, we gave it a miss) got it pretty much spot on.
The conceit of the play is a Shakespeare pastiche, imagining a future King Charles III stumbling into a constitutional crisis with the government. (Three and a half years on, that scenario seems more likely than it did in April 2014, but I’ll leave that thought to one side).
That Shakespeare pastiche style worked in places but grated on me at times.
This was to be our last sighting of Tim Pigott-Smith, whose fine acting we enjoyed many times over the years. The whole cast was good and it was magnificently staged and produced.
Janie and I both really really liked this play/production.
In many ways not the sort of play we normally like. It was quite long and very broad in its sweep – spanning continents and decades.
But it was such a good play and so well done.
Fine cast; not least Claudia Blakley (who we think of as an Orange Tree regular), Stephen Campbell Moore (who I got to know quite well shortly afterwards at BodyWorksWest) and Benedict Wong (who we’ll forever think of as Ai Weiwei – or at least Janie will).
The reviews were, deservedly, good but not great – click here for a search term link. As Woody Allen might have said, “it was a good play, not a great play…”
I seem to recall that this piece charmed me more than it did Daisy. Eduardo De Filippo is never going to be her type of playwright, even when Tanya Ronder writes a spicy version of this uber-Neapolitan play.
A fine production. Samantha Spiro was excellent as the eponymous lead, along with a good supporting cast.
Below is the trailer:
Also an interesting interview with Michael Attenborough about the play:
…but ultimately the play could only achieve so much – I think most of the critics, like Janie, were underwhelmed by the play but they also – like me – found the production charming and worthwhile – click here for a search term to find the reviews.
Janie and I are partial to a bit of Poliakoff on the stage, which is all too rare these days, so we were had been very much looking forward to this one.
Tracey Ullman has tremendous stage presence. The conceit of the play – an old primary schoolteacher wandering around London telling stories about the place – sounds great.
Yet, in truth, this play was not quite top drawer Poliakoff in our eyes. It was revisiting many of his themes and styles, but perhaps without hitting the heights that earlier works hit. Perhaps it is the familiarity that detracts from the sense of excitement.
We had a very enjoyable evening at the theatre, but concluded that Poliakoff is probably, now, doing his best work for TV rather than for stage.
Of course it was wonderfully well acted and the production was excellent, but I recall not being too enamoured of the play. It was quite long and wordy. I think you are supposed to feel trapped by the play, much as the characters are trapped in their circumstances.
