Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
We saw this play/production in preview and I clearly remember both of us saying immediately afterwards how much it reminded us of Arthur Miller’s style. Unsurprisingly, that was also the verdict of the bulk of the critics.
We also thought it was a very good play and an excellent production…the critics were largely still with us on that aspect too.
Here is the trailer and interesting chat about the play/production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY32zawMHWQ
We were not overly impressed with this play.
David Hare is very good at burrowing around all manner of interesting topics, but I suspect he was too far away from his spheres of knowledge and understanding with the financial crisis.
Hare almost admits as much, as the narrator of the play is a somewhat perplexed author.
So to me, Hare was making the obvious points about the financial crisis well enough, but there was little dramatic tension and no new insight in the piece.
Janie liked it a bit more than i did, but I suspect that she got more out of it, being less steeped in the financial crisis in the first place.
I’m glad we saw it, but this is second division work from a first division playwright. There was little a good cast and production could do to save it.
Obviously I was better from my 48 hours of food poisoning by the Saturday. I’m pretty sure I went in to work on the Friday and then a full weekend of activities.
Now I have had written complaints from Jilly already about my handwriting, so the above page is only for artistic effect. Here is the entry for the Saturday:
Saturday 10 December: Driving lesson & Orpheus Descending With Jilly & Annalisa Party
There – that wasn’t so challenging, now, was it?
I remember really liking this play and production. What a fabulous cast.
The Theatricalia website lists the production thus.
Note that we saw this production three days before the stated first performance, so Jilly and I must have gone to see a preview.
Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:
Billington on Orpheus Thu, Dec 15, 1988 – 28 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Below is Kate Kellaway’s Observer review
Kate Kellaway on Orpheus Sun, Dec 18, 1988 – 40 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
They made a film based on that Peter Hall production with some (but not all) of the cast we saw in it. Here is the trailer for that movie – far more melodramatic looking than the stage production I remember, but still it should give you some idea:
For that particular evening, I’m sure that the original idea was that Bobbie would join me to see this play/production. But when she had to pull out for some reason, it made a great deal of sense for Jilly to act as sub, especially as we were both invited to Annalisa’s party and were given leave to be fashionably late arrivals.
In truth, I cannot remember specific details of this particular party at Annalisa’s place in Hinde Street, but her parties were always popular, always lavish in hospitality and always late nighters. At that time, just a couple of years after Annalisa had finished at Keele, I suspect it was a very Keeley crowd that night.
As the diary says, on the Sunday, I:
…went to G Jenny with Ma & Pa…
…the next day, quite probably a little tiredly and sore-headedly. But Grandma Jenny no doubt wanted to know all about my new flat and my new job, so I’ll guess that I was centre of attention that Sunday afternoon.