I’d been keen to see this one. I remembered reading it “back in the day” and had wondered how it might work as a performance piece.
In truth, it didn’t work for either of us.
Here is a link to the Finborough’s resource on Masterpieces.
The subject matter of the play is fascinating; pornography, the objectification of women, violence against women and how all those things might interrelate. But, to me, the play fails to develop characters and plot sufficiently to make the audience care about the drama; only about the issues.
Janie thought that maybe it was the production that was a bit stilted rather than the play. Hard to tell.
Perhaps we were a little jaded because we were both tired after a longish day at a tennis match…
A Week Dominated By Intense Middlesex v MCC Contests, 24, 27 & 28 April 2018
…but then again, I played the same fixture the previous year, after which we saw and loved The Ferryman at the Royal Court:
The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth, Royal Court Theatre, 29 April 2017
A little unfair, perhaps, to compare a Finborough production with a Royal Court one, but the point is we do have the stamina for long days and long plays if/when the quality is high enough.
Returning to Masterpieces, I can understand why it seemed timely to revive the play, given the topicality of its issues in a subtly different context 35 years on. But as a play, it seemed very old-fashioned to me and the style in which the Finborough directed and produced this play very much locked it in as an 80s period piece, which (for me) was a mistake.
We rarely walk at half time, but on this occasion, tired and cognisant that the second half contains gruelling material, we did walk.
I believe this production is getting mixed reviews at the time of writing, so you don’t need to take our word for it – click here and skim the various reviews. Indeed, the piece has c3 weeks still to run at the time of writing, so you can go judge for yourselves.
On the matter of Sarah Daniels writing style, I cannot find an extract from Masterpieces but here is a short monologue from The Gut Girls which gives you a feel for the style:
Anyway, we have seen far more hits than misses at the Finborough, so we remain fans of that super place.