Tag: Sam Dowson

It Just Stopped by Stephen Sewell, Orange Tree Theatre, 22 February 2014

A curates egg of a play, this. Good in parts. Irritating in others. It is set in an apartment block in which a pair of Manhatten sophisticates are thrown together with a vulgar pair of Melbournites when their tower apartment block has a total blackout.

Here is the Orange Tree resource on the play – sadly lacking the cast and creatives (but they are nevertheless tagged in this Ogblog piece).

Here is a link to a search term that finds other resources on this play/production.

Below is a Vimeo of the cast talking about the play:

I recall we enjoyed the first half of this one more than the second half. Still, we were glad to have seen it and went to Don Fernando for some Spanish grub afterwards.

Seven Year Twitch by David Lewis, Orange Tree Theatre, 25 May 2013

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.

Click here for a link to the Orange Tree resource on this play/production.

Here is a link to a search term for reviews – which were middling on the whole.

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 White House Murder Case by Jules Feiffer, Orange Tree Theatre, 20 October 2012

My weekend pages are a blank at this time, but by a process of elimination Janie and I must have seen this play on 13 October or 20 October 2012. Janie’s diaries (currently in the attic) might help solve that tiny element of the case.

At the time, in 2012, this cartoon-like 1970s play about some bizarre future White House regime, set about 40 years hence…i.e. about now…seemed crazy beyond belief.

Writing in 2018, I realise that the playwright, Jules Feiffer, merely lacked the imagination to envisage a Trump-like character in all his grotesqueness.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on this play/production.

I don’t think Janie and I were overly smitten with this piece. It had its moments and some good acting – Bruce Alexander as the President I recall was a bit of a standout – but on the whole it seemed a bit silly and superficial to us.

I think the critics quite liked it on the whole – here is a link to a search on the reviews.

Play House And Definitely the Bahamas by Martin Crimp, Orange Tree Theatre, 31 March 2012

A double bill of Martin Crimp plays, the first brand new, the second an older one.

Part of the Orange Tree’s 40th anniversary celebrations and a nod to one of its bigger achievements; championing Martin Crimp’s work in the early days.

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

I recall us liking the first, more recent play more than we liked the older play on this evening.

They were very different and we were pleased to have seen both.

We’re not normally wild about writers directing their own work, but Crimp did a good job with these pieces.

The reviews were good too – click here for a link to them.

The Company Man by Torben Betts, Orange Tree Theatre, 9 October 2010

I don’t remember a great deal about this one.

Here is the Orange Tree stub on the play/production.

I think it might have been a bit much for us at that time, with Phillie so poorly by then, so perhaps we didn’t even stick it out to the second half.

This search term suggests that the few reviews it got were quite good ones.

The Promise by Ben Brown, Orange Tree Theatre, 27 February 2010

I don’t think this one really floated our boat. We liked the idea of it but it had a rather laboured feel as a piece of drama.

We were not having a good run at the theatre in the first part of 2010 and this one was part of that poor run for us.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on the production.

I remember guessing at the time that Michael Billington would like it; he did – click here.

This search term – click here – will find you the other main reviews, most of which were luke warm.

We went for our traditional dinner at Don Fernando afterwards; I have a feeling we even skived the second half of this one.

Greenwash by David Lewis, Orange Tree Theatre, 21 February 2009

We rather liked this one, although more form the point of view of it being a well acted interesting piece on an interesting subject than it being great drama or great comedy.

You can read all about it on the Orange Tree site – here.

Janie and I describe silly or farcical comedies as being “a bit Vincent Golightly” (don’t ask, long/fictional story) and this was a bit Vincent for sure. But we enjoyed our evening in the theatre and topped it off with some Spanish food at Don Fernando, as is our Richmond habit most times.

 

 

 

 

 

Mountain Hotel & Audience by Vaclav Havel, Orange Tree Theatre, 15 November 2008

It seemed like a good idea when we booked it. Here ‘s a link to the rubric that enticed us, along with the cast and creatives information.

We’d had previous experience of Vaclav Havel’s plays, so shouldn’t have been surprised to find the absurdity a bit lame and the drama weak.

In particular, I thought Audience (about a playwright stacking beer barrels in a warehouse) tame.

So what do we know?

Still, we enjoyed our Don Fernando dinner afterwards and never feel completely let down after an evening at the Orange Tree.

Mountain Hotel and Audience by Vaclav Havel, Orange Tree Theatre, 15 November 2008

This double bill was part of a Vaclav Havel Season that autumn at the Orange Tree.  We only attended this one evening.

Vaclav Havel is one of those writers that you really want to like and there are always some very clever lines and some interestingly weird scenes in his plays.  Yet somehow Havel never quite seems to work for me or for Janie.

Still, we enjoyed the evening.  The Mountain Hotel one was a typically Havel peculiar mix of people thrown together in a hotel garden being absurd together.  I think we even considered sneaking away a half time, but stayed to see what the second play was like.  Audience is a short quasi-autobiographical piece about Vanek, who works in an absurd beer factory.  It did not motivate us to return and see the other short Vanek plays later in the season.

It was all very well acted and well directed; David Antrobus is an Orange Tree regular and is reliably good.

You can read all about it, including who played whom and stuff, here.  Someone at the Orange Tree is doing an amazing archiving job; I am grateful to them.

Michael Billington, a long term Orange Tree fan, is polite but clearly didn’t much like the evening either.

Philip Fisher in the British Theatre Guide is more upbeat about the evening.

Ian Shuttleworth’s FT piece can still be seen archived here.