Tag: Dan Jones

Loves Comedy by Henrik Ibsen, Orange Tree Theatre, 17 November 2012

Sometimes there is a reason why a great playwright’s early works don’t see the light of day.

This early Ibsen is a cautionary tale.

Worse, in the hands of the old-style Orange Tree orthodoxy, text that doesn’t deserve such respect is given the full length treatment…

…I don’t think we stuck the two hours and forty minutes of this one.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on this one.

Not all that many reviews but surprisingly good ones – this search term finds the reviews for you.

I never thought I’d see the day that Janie and I couldn’t stick an Ibsen.

The Knot Of The Heart by David Eldridge, Almeida Theatre, 16 April 2011

This was a challenging play about addiction and the impact of those with addictions/addictive personalities on their loved ones.

Lisa Dillon was superb in the lead; it seems the lead part was pretty-much written for her. As usual at the Almeida, it was a well-chosen play, extremely well acted, directed and produced.

Islington Almeida Theatre 2011
David Eldridge was very much on our watch list as a writer; we’d seen a few of his that we really liked, not least his adaptation of Festen at the Almeida.

I must admit though, we both found this a tough watch. Perhaps it was too soon after Phillie’s passing for us to be suitably sympathetic to a character whose misery and tragedy seemed largely self-inflicted. But it was undeniably an excellent evening’s theatre.

Here is the Almeida resource on this play/production.

Below is a good trailer with quotes David Eldridge and Michael Attenborough commenting:

The play and production were (deservedly) very well received by the critics – here is a search term that finds reviews and other relevant resources.

Extremely powerful stuff.

Through A Glass Darkly by Ingmar Bergman, Almeida Theatre, 10 July 2010

I am a huge fan of Ingmar Bergman films, not least Through A Glass Darkly – click here for IMdB link – so we were very excited about this stage adaptation at the Almeida.

BTW, I reviewed the movie on IMdB down the page here – way back in 2002 (when I saw value in reviewing such movies as so few people did!).

Anyway, we went to the opening Saturday night at the Almeida.

I’m not normally one for stage adaptations, but Bergman himself had granted stage adaptation rights for this film alone, so it is fair to assume that the great man himself could visualise a suitable staging.

Here is a link to the Almeida resource on this production.

This little video about the production is really interesting:

This stage adaptation worked really well at the Almeida. Superb cast, brilliantly staged and directed.

Here is a search term that will find reviews and stuff – click here.

We really enjoyed this production. I can’t honestly say that you get much from the text that goes beyond the movie script, but seeing this chamber piece close up, live, was an unforgettable experience and did add to this great work.

Each Day Dies with Sleep by José Rivera, Orange Tree Theatre, 8 July 1995

We thought this was a very good production. José Rivera was not a well known writer back then, pre Motorcycle Diaries, but we chose this on the back of interesting sounding subject matter and the quality of stuff we were getting at The Orange Tree, which was on a bit of a roll at that time.

From the bowels of my memory, I recalled it as sort of magical realism…

…so I was delighted to see that Michael Billington used that term in the first sentence of his review. At one point Billington suggests that the production was as if Tennessee Williams had been done over by Pedro Almodovar. No wonder we really liked it.

Billington on RiveraBillington on Rivera Wed, Jul 5, 1995 – 83 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com