If my memory serves me correctly, we saw this play as a matinee on the Saturday and then Twelfth Night in the evening. It might have been the other way around.
Janie and I are fans of Ibsen for the moral dramas; this play is very different – a fantasy poem of sorts, although grounded in Ibsen’s family experience. Wikipedia explains the play well here.
But who needs experts? Janie and I thought it was a very good production, so it was just that. Alex Jennings memorable in the lea but well supported by the whole cast.
In amongst the heave of getting Z/Yen started that autumn, Janie and I did make the time for a solitary long weekend in Stratford-Upon-Avon, during which we saw three plays.
Not exactly a rest cure…
…said Janie, when I latterly (c25 years later, October 2019) showed her the evidence of that weekend.
The evidence shows that we stayed at The Shakespeare Hotel that time; I think for the second and possibly the last time. We found the room a bit pokey.
Anyway, we saw this David Edgar play on the Friday evening and thought it superb. I’ve always been a fan of Edgar’s plays and this is a good example of his work.
Anyway, we loved this play/production, that’s for sure. The notion of art and culture fusing/transferring both from west to east and from east to west is more or less received wisdom now, but the debate in the play, especially while the southern slavic region of Europe was still in turmoil, felt very topical and of the moment in 1994.
Did we eat in Fatty Arbuckle’s that evening? Quite possibly, but unless more evidence turns up we’ll not know for sure.
Billington On Peer Gynt Fri, May 6, 1994 – 45 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
