We really don't care about theatre do we?

Last month I've been to a Proust theatre adaptation.
My favorite shows are from Pina Bausch, Alain Platel en Jerome Bel.
I was more interested in dance-theatre than in plays really.

I think modern/contemporary dance is no big issue here either tho.

I am interested in musicals up to and including (some of) Sondheim, from a pop, maybe even rock 'n roll, perspective. But as a phenomenon today, I think there's little to talk about because they have almost nothing to do with changes in culture. I don't know if that's a cause or effect of their audience (at least in New York) - very old people and tourists.

Being a social outcast has some advantages, then!

But no, I really don't care about theatre. Not that much.

Thus I am "sophisticated."

I don't see any theater at all, really. I've not even been able to keep up with film for the past few years, and at some point I gave up even trying; theater's unfortunately even a step below that in priorities.

edmonton theater is really vivid and i try to see one a month, but it is prohibtivley expensive.

Quite so. This is the strength and the weakness of theater.

What about the differences between watching a concert video or being at a concert. The is more excitment and energy live, it is happening 'now', and there is no setbacks of use of media when seeing it live.

I think potentially theater could be one of the most amazing artforms, but I've never seen anyone do much good with it.

and Top Girls at the Guthrie Lab- no idea.

anyway the Guthrie is nice and usually lush and well-produced an stuff, and i get starry thinking about upcoming Shakespeare but it is warping my young mind by relentlessly beating on about the CLASSICS. etc. i really need to find myself a wealthy sugar-momma to take out to other theaters.

ok i got my tightpants on- i'm off to lurk 'mysteriously' outside high-priced Edina hairsalons.

good theatre is great. people who think theatre is obsolete know nothing.

In addition Lepage/ Ex Machina were frequent visitors to Glasgow and i think i have seen most oof his plays here. Theatre de Complicite don't come here anymore either. I miss stuff like this.

Of course, this is only true if you disregard the technical differences between onstage performance, film and television. As far as I am concerned the differences really are minor technicalities.

In all three media you have scripted dialogue telling a story with actors, costumes, scenery, lighting, incidental music, and so on.

The fact that a camera lens imposes a control over the audience's point-of-view that cannot be utilized in stage performances does not make much difference in my view. Stage direction tries to filter the audience's attention, too, except it uses lighting effects, blocking of actor's movements, and other technical means that are somewhat less effective than a camera. The goal is quite similar.

Theater people are just blinded by their nostalgic love of certain techniques that must be modified or discarded in a filmed setting as opposed to a stage setting. They identify these technicalities with 'theater', abhor the new technicalities of movies and tv, and overlook the overwhelming similarities between all the various forms of the modern theater.

you're making like montage is just another nifty gadget in the film director's toolbox; really it is ESSENTIAL to film, much more so than lighting and blocking is to theatre

xpost

the spatial quality of film and theater are to a large extent opposed.... the camera's "field of vision" is like an upside-down triangle, whereas a conventional stage is a bit the opposite (why it's rare for a theater director to stage a signification action in the back of the stage--harder to ensure that the audience's attention is directed to it). so they pose very different staging problems. i don't quite buy aimless's argument that this means they are different only in the method by which an audience's attention is directed. i think there is a place for ontological speculation....

slocki, it seems to me a hell of a lot of great films were made in the 1930s, and many of them were only a few baby steps away from being filmed stage productions with over-the-shoulder reaction shots and the occassional montage (thank you Sergei) to spice them up.

If montage is as ESSENTIAL as you say it is, then these films would have failed at birth, rather than becoming successful films - which, not coincidentally are still watched, enjoyed and studied today. Montage is just another nifty tool in a director's toolbox. It just happens to be such a useful tool that it gets used a lot.

30s films are usually edited pretty briskly, so it's not simply a matter of using up a reel of film shooting an integral theatrical performance. "montage" doesn't mean soviet montage necessarily--just, y'know, editing bits of film together. all hollywood films are edited together from master shots, medium shots (plan american etc.), and occasionally inserts/close ups at a rate of i dunno one shot every 10-12 seconds. (nowadays it's more like every 5 seconds but we're talking about the 1930s)

i think this is pretty important: "filmed theater" isn't really as simple as that, the fact of it being filmed and edited together in the conventional way transforms the way the story is being told. perhaps the "meaning" is ultimately the same, but i'm not sure that's true or if it even matters so much.

to get "filmed theater" you need to go back to 1895-1910 or so, like the original version of the "wizard of oz" which is basically "selected scenes from the stage play of 'the wizard of oz'"--but as i noted above the spatial aspect of film is such that a stage performance is NECESSARILY transformed if it is to be "faithfully" captured on film. those early films that don't bother with such a transformation are often incomprehensible and usually dismissed as "primtive" (that's another hill of beans or whatever).

some "fixed setup" films do sort of selfconsciously evoke a "theatrical" quality, or even overtly beg comparison to theater: oliveira, etc.--or to "primitive" cinema (angelopoulos). and certain kinds of framing (even outside the context of a long-take style) can evoke theater, "performance" too with fruitful results. but lots of fixed-setup films really don't evoke theater at all. it's impossible to imagine hou or jia films as anything but cinema--the natural settings, natural lighting, etc. are absolutely critical.

anyway yeah so i think cinema can do a lot with "theatricality" and i don't think calling a film "theatrical" is a very convincing slur (unless you're writing in 1905, maybe).

i'm repeating myself and possibly not making sense.\

XPOST

s1ocki, i didn't find aimless's post dismissive. anyways i'm not a film student or anything. i'm not sure about agree/disagree--i don't think i dismissed aimless's post or embraced it fully. i just sort of responded to it.

!!

Seen anything else? New Yorkers, Albee's Seascape?

that's probably it, coupled with the world's general philistinism. I wuv the theatre and wish i went to it more often. The last thing I saw was a monster production of Titus Andronicus before Christmas.

We need a rolling Theatre S/D thread really, but as you all say, nobody cares.

xp i care

Yes, but why? (I'm not being flippant.)

speaking of revivals, though, when I was in LA, I took my grandmother to one of the Reprise! shows, which had great original choreography and housed in a small enough theatre (at UCLA) that the amplification (live orchestra) wasn't overbearing. one of the leads, Tami Tappan Damiano, was moderately impressive too. they also do one-weekend shows with some medium-sized Hollywood types (when I was there - Working, with among others Camryn Manheim).

I basically prefer fringier theatre... partly this is the indie kid in me, but I think also that fringy theatre is more true to what the theatre is all about. It's still more expensive than I'd like it to be... why can't they just replace all actors with cheaper non-unionised Eastern Europeans?

The thing I hate most about the theatre is that in general you have to book in advance and can't just show up on whim to things like you can with other things.

when i say "beyond realism" i mean it in the most mundane way that you might not find interesting at all, that's cool. for example, in film a table is always a table but in the theatre that exact same table could be a table, a bed, an autopsy slab, a raft, a shelter, or any number of things. e.g. a Robert Lepage play i saw where a washing machine doubles up as a space ship (not as ridiculous as it sounds). there are any number of things you can "only do in the theatre" whereas the public perception is that theatre is limited in some way, compared to film. i think it's the opposite. this needs lots of examples & i don't have the time to go into it now but i'll come back to it later.

theres a bunch of interesting stuff on in london, and here in the provinces we've got "the romans in britain" next month in sheffield, dario fo's "mistero buffo" in april, and in leeds the trinidadian "three sisters" at the WYP, which i was reading about the other day.

I love the crucible, but the last thing i saw there was a hmmmm version of "much ado about nothing"

saw the history boys too in sheffield which was excellent, although i thought the set was a bit showy.

i dont understand going to the theatre in london, from what my parents go through it seems as though you have to book tickets a year in advance or something?!?!! up here i just turn up generally.

mind you, that yforward planning allowed me to see the full 9 hours of "coast of utopia" at the national which was pretty fucking special, if a bit harsh on yr ass

ok - i think the the table thing is an example of something that opens out wider possibilites for theatre, i dont mean it just like "props in the theatre can be many different things and that's why it's important" but as i said i'll give more examples later.

realism SuXoR.

the point for me would be the same as that for going to London in the first place

it's at the national, right? they keep back a certain number of tickets for every performance and sell them for a tenner (i think) on the day. the seats could be anywhere. they start selling them at 10am iirc, the only time i did it i got there for about 8, was the third person in the queue, spent a pleasant couple of hours reading, chatting and peoplewatching and got a front row seat (not as great as it sounds as the stage is at head-height) for the philip pullman/archbish rowan 'platform' debate (that wasn't a tenner actually, it was £3 or something. anyway it was brilliant). so er, yeah, if you get up early you can get a ticket.

I think the title of the Gorey show was "Dispirited Diversion for Christmas," but I get a little confused since the Hypocrites also adapted "The Curious Sofa" as a toy theatre piece. That also ruled.

the point is that theatre fought back by going beyond realism, it's that kind of theatre (devised theatre especially) that i find so vital.

I am more interested in the other reaction, personally -- of saying, "wait, film might be able to throw in more realistic details but in theatre you, personally, are really there, as are the actors and everything else." Which is to say that it seems largely hard to justify a proscenium stage, since that comes off as a poor recreation of film. But, without going into boring and painful forms of "interactive" theatre, you can still engage an audience in a more literal way.

Which is to say, most of what I think could be interesting in theatre these days come closer to "installations" or even "performance art" if that weren't so loaded with unpleasant associations.

I think I've heard of Justin Tanner, but I'm not really in the mood to watch a play about wifeswapping.

where they really do fall down compared to other devised theatre groups i have seen and loved - Lepage's Ex-Machina, The Wooster Group, Theatre de Complicite - is that they don't move so well and it's not as tight, performance-wise. also they totally wear their research on their sleeve as a sort of badge of honour "hey aren't we clever?" - really really trying hard to make it clear to the audience that they've done alot of reading for this thing. whereas with those other groups the obvious heavy research they have done to get where thay are just falls away because the performances themselves and the mechanics of the staging are generally so stunning. as i said it WAS a work in progress but i have seen works in progress from those other groups too.

also i saw a devised piece from the belgian thatre company Wayne Traub about a month ago that had obviously had alot of money thrown at it, was technically very impressive: split screens displaying alternate narratives simultaneously; hoists for the props to dissappear and reappear mid scene; gorgeous sets and constumes... and it was one of the most empty and vapid and depressing theatrical experiences ever. the critics love them.

Goat Island is fabu. DOG Theater in Chicago is heavily Goat Island-influenced and totally recommended.

Bennett, along with his other stage-TV-film stuff, wrote one of my favorite film comedies of the last few decades, A Private Function w/ Michael Palin and Maggie Smith.

greatest American musical ever, people. or at least, the most fun.

I like going to the theatre but somehow I never actually go unless someone else suggests it. Then often I read reviews of things and wish I'd gone. That's where cinema wins in terms of easily-digestible culture, because if you miss a film in a theatre, you can watch it some other time.

Black Watch is finally happening

also, Claire Danes in, uh, Pygmalion - http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/aa.htm

Theater is basically where painting was 100 years ago at the advent of photography. It is no longer the most useful tool for documenting actual events (film does it better), but it's liberated from that responsibility as well.

my dad reports that a britishes production of Awake and Sing (Bronx, 1930s) replaced seltzer bottles with bottles of sparkling water. does this bode ill for the Guys & Dolls transplant coming next year?

# We really don't care about theatre do we? [Started by N. (nickdastoor), last updated 22 minutes ago] 1 new answer
# My faggotry knows no bounds [Started by Jesse, last updated 24 minutes ago] 69 new answers

really good things seen recently: "John Moran and his neighbour Saori" at the aurora nova in edinburgh, Zero Visibility Corporation's "I have a secret to tell you (please) leave with me" at the tramway in glasgow - utterly incredible, probably the most moving dance piece i've ever seen. their web site is playing up and take you to the directories rather than to the site proper but you can watch a clip here, if your interested:

http://www.zerocorps.com/secret.inc.php

not so good things seen recently: The Wooster Group's new thing "La Didone". A mess.

Two of my last three theater experiences:

I saw Kevin Spacey and Colm Meaney in Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon For The Misbegotten." It was more enjoyable than the one Eugene O'Neill play I've ever read ("The Hairy Ape") and less pure social-realist than I expected. Kevin Spacey was good but odd - I got the sense that it was a pretty liberal interpretation of the character. First act had a bit too much aw shucks humor but the second act was great.

-- Hurting 2, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:48 (3 months ago) Link

I saw Liev Schreiber in Talk Radio. He was good but I realized I really don't like Eric Bogosian's writing much.

-- Hurting 2, Sunday, 10 June 2007 14:58 (3 months ago) Link

The third and last was the musical Spring Awakening which was horrendous

i am going to mee's iphigenia 2.0 on friday. also a bunch of other stuff i don't quite remember throughout the semester (note: hidden cost of school - they don't tell you there will be all these required plays to attend adding an extra $150 to your semester)

anyway this is my own fault for choosing a program based in a theater department, but it's actually making me... not care about theatre and wish i could take music history classes all day long!

I pretty much hate theater and most performances of any kind because I get profoundly embarrassed for the performers and it makes me uncomfortable.
Still, I will go to the upcoming Wooster Group's staging of Hamlet because I like Hamlet and the WG are always so interesting and multi-media embracing that it takes the pressure off me as an audience member to give my undivided attention to the people on the stage. Also, they don't even remotely suck so that takes the edge off a bit too.

oh they don't suck, they can be amazing but i think they've settled into a technique that's suffering diminishing returns. i think the only thing that they could do now is to actually forego all that multi media stuff. the last few things they have done have all been based on acting out scenes that are happening simultaneously on a plasma screen, the source usually being a b-movie. the first time i saw it, in "House/Lights" i thought it was incredible, this time round it was an unfocussed mess. the use of technology was overblown and i didn't really feel that they knew why they were even doing it; i certainly didn't. it didn't have any of the elegance or clarity of their earlier work and, importantly, it didn't even look good. this one's based around scenes from Richard Burton's version of Hamlet, i hope it's better.

Obviously Broadway (including the straight plays) is problematic on a lot of levels - way too expensive, caters primarily to tourist, sees itself as competing with movies or something and goes for spectacle and/or celebrity and/or brand recognition.

I think I enjoy theater the most when it's the least like film or tv - just a bare bones set with the kind of acting that radiates intensity into the audience.

jed_ i agree about La Didone! I saw it at the Royal Lycaeum in Edinburgh and thought it was like some cruelly accurate parody of what the Wooster Group does. I wondered if it was me who had changed, or them.

I pretty much hate theater and most performances of any kind because I get profoundly embarrassed for the performers and it makes me uncomfortable.

I feel this way about many things, most recently, songs with lyrics.

it's great to hear this re wooster group because i keep hearing them praised as the only group 'making a difference' or being 'innovative'. people want to believe. i think this criticism is healthy.

tracer, i saw i there too, i wonder if we were at the same performance?!

I get profoundly embarrassed for the performers

My thought would be that either the director didn't know what kind of performance the play required, or the actors weren't good enough to deliver. I've seen it go both ways. (It's almost never the playwright's fault, because inferior scripts rarely get as far as their first performance.)

When it's done right, no one gets embarassed.

also, tracer, i just wondered to what possible end the whole grand event had been mounted. i didn't think the two texts illuminated each other but even if they had overlapped more successfully what could it even mean? what was the point of putting them together?

(It's almost never the playwright's fault, because inferior scripts rarely get as far as their first performance.)

hi have you seen any recent labute???

Nope. Premieres of plays do have a larger chance of the script being crap. But I'm pretty sure that the crap should get weeded out quickly once an audience gets a good look at it. If this no longer applies, then the theater really has moved to the far margin. At least, it used to be that the self-absorbed dilettantes were up on the stage, not in the seats.

Theatre 503 in Battersea gets in consistently great shows. Last week I went there to see Man Across the Way, a one-act play about surveillance and revenge in Glasgow. Next week they start a play called "Sting for Nolte" about a guy whose girlfriend buys him tickets to see Sting, sending him into paroxysms of self-doubt about his relationship!!

jed_ I'm bummed out that I didn't realize you were there, too! I was doing a play called Class for two weeks. It wasn't a great play but we managed to keep people entertained. And most importantly, didn't lose money.

I think theatre has had a lot of catching up to do with television, and was caught for a long time trying to seaparate and distance itself from the techniques television (and film) brought to drama. Quick cuts and a willingness to be middle-brow among other things. But I think it has caught up now. I've seen a lot of fun, loosey-goosey plays recently.

Haha now I see I posted almost the exat same thing four years ago, except I didn't think theatre had caught up yet!

I saw a guy reciting Joseph Conrad's complete "Heart of Darkness" on saturday. Deadly stuff it was.

(It's almost never the playwright's fault, because inferior scripts rarely get as far as their first performance.)

This comment only makes sense if we're talking Broadway, where the financial stakes are so high. Most of the new plays I have the opportunity to see in Chicago are in small storefront theaters, and while I've been lucky to see mostly good productions, I'm sure there are plenty of badly written plays that are put on for the cast and crew's friends week after week.

lolol there are lots and lots of bad plays guys

If you're in Chicago and want to see something on par with the Wooster Group (without the budget, though), see Lucky Pierre's current show.

how come i've never posted on this thread? how odd...

the wooster group were the main reason i was going to go to embra this year, so i'm glad i didn't (kinda).

i saw some of the older forced ents shows (first night, dirty work and and on the thousandth night) over the summer that i'd missed in my HATE ALL THEATRE period (c. 95-03) and they still totally rock more than any other theatre group, even if last year's words and pictures was a bit disappointing...

the world in pictures was amazing, i thought. i totally agree that they are the ones pushing the boundaries at the moment.

hmmm, i thought it was a bit of a one-trick pony, like a sketch that had expanded to fill two hours (obviously if it had expanded to fill 12 hours i'd have been happier ;)), rather than a show on it's own...

I missed both the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and the Elevator Repair Service this week. Oh well!

put on for the cast and crew's friends week after week.

It seems wrong to call that theater. It's just the dramatic equivalent of third graders writing poems that their mothers put up on the refrigerator.

i'm sure tracer was exaggerating. a large number of the, literally, thousands of fringe shows get very small audiences. it doesn't make them not-theatre though.

re. forced entertainment - i saw the revival of the sophie calle show in london recently and thought it was terribly boring. it didn't put me off them though.

Aimless says that as if most third graders aren't better than most published poets (or certainly better than anything that gets published in, say, the New Yorker).

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117974574.html?categoryid=15&cs=1

LOGIN?

Brits, should I go see Stoppard's Rock 'n Roll (or however he punctuates it)?

well, it doesn't matter for now as the stagehand strike has shuttered it...

not Cymbeline or Pygmalion

i find theatre incredibly offensive

although i should point out all ive seen are cats, les miserables and rozencrantz and guildenstern are dead.

well, that's offensive.

They were interviewing sad Irish tourists who'd come all the way to NY to see PHANTOM, and all I could think was Lucky for you, bugger off and get some actual culture while you're here, now.

"Phantom," my sole exposure to that variety of "theatre," was quite possibly the worst 2-3 hours of my life

how has the person who bought tix made it up to you?

Okay I just realized the other day that the Webber target that is in need of some serious, vicious bagging is STARLIGHT EXPRESS. It is about TRAIN PEOPLE. He wrote it for his GRANDKIDS, which is always an ill omen.

http://www.ramada.de/bildarchivdb/16025_1156921595.jpg

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/51868170.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19390335F8FA9CA92A691656D5B1677BA2578A0E721FD50B7AE

http://www.nrw-tourismus.de/fileadmin/user_upload/images/starlight-express.jpg

I have to admit the poster is awesome, though:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/2/25/200px-StarlightLogo.jpg

Poppa, an old steam engine and past racing champion, tells Rusty the legend of the Starlight Express, a midnight train who helps engines in distress. The Starlight visits Rusty in a dream, telling him that true power comes from within. In the end, the underdog, Rusty, triumphs over the more powerful engines, winning the final race, Pearl's love and his self-confidence.

"A Lotta Locomotion" was changed on the US/UK tours to "A Whole Lotta Locomotion". There have also been three different raps:

* Hey, you! (1984-1991)
* Check it out, can you believe this? (1992-2001)
* It's race time! (2004 onward)

Six Starlight posts is sufficient for now...

thread title made true: no broadway strike discussion! at least i couldn't find a thread.

thoughts anyone?

hoping that it kills off The Miserables

did the other critics flip for the Broadway revival of The Homecoming like Brantley?

I think John Lahr did in this week's New Yorker, as proof that the play is the masterpiece he always thought it was.

I'm going to see the new (not sure if it actually is or not) David Mamet play tonight. (By which I obviously really mean that one with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in it.) Is it going to be shit? I'm quite hard to please when it comes to the theatre.

Definitely not a new play. I was tempted by this - I love Goldblum but not so sure about Spacey. It's a great play though.

Thanks for that, I'm looking forward to it now.

It seems it is not at all new. 1988 according to wiki.

Spoke to a couple of people at the weekend who'd seen it, they were impressed.

I live just round the corner but haven't seen anything there since Spacey took over - this is the first one that's looked vaguely tempting.

Newsnight Review savaged it, but other than that I know very little about it. And Nick Broomfield was one of the people doing the reviewing and he hates everything.

Has anyone seen The Masque of The Red Death?

'the new David Mamet play' is on now in nyc

The London play is Speed-the-Plow?? I saw it on Broadway w/ Ron Silver, Joe Mantegna, and Madonna. It was meh.

has anyone in nyc seen the new richard foreman, um, "theater-machine?" been curious to see something of his for awhile now..

theatre be too expensive for much of ilx i suspect.

I saw that Mantegna/Silver/Madonna Speed-The-Plow too. Direction was top-notch. In retrospect, I wish I had also seen the replacement cast (Bob Balaban, David Rasche, Felicity Huffman).

macbeth is opening tonight! at bam... should be exciting except the weather is gonna keep people away ;(

I bet they'll make the Trek. :)

=)

Newsnight Review savaged it

OK, this is probably definitely worth seeing then.

has anyone in nyc seen the new richard foreman, um, "theater-machine?" been curious to see something of his for awhile now..
Haven't seen this but I've seen his stuff in the past and it was really good.

The play was really good, although very short. Hard to get over the 'that's Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey' aspect of it though. Seemed to me to be more about sex and power contextualised by the movie business that an actual critique of Hollywood itself, but what the hell do i know?

My ticket for last night was only twelve quid so if ILXors go to gigs they can afford to go to plays.

Patrick Stewart notes possibility of unnamed production that will reunite him with McKellen on stage within next 18 months.

xcited to see macbeth

hear it's good. i wish he would shave that awful mustache off though!

things i will be seeing in next few months:
ghosts @ the pearl
sunday in the park with george @ studio 54
parlour song @ the atlantic
gypsy (preview for the revival w/ patti lupone! lols! awesome!)
some other stuff i'm forgetting.

Patrick Stewart notes possibility of unnamed production that will reunite him with McKellen on stage within next 18 months.

What do you think - True West, American Buffalo, or The Zoo Story?

Did anyone see Metamorphosis at the Lyric?

Did not.

Saw Doctor Atomic at the Lyric last month, or at least the last two hours of it -- took someone's 10th row seat at intermission instead of shelling out $160 for a ticket.

Fantastic show.

Rock 'n' Roll is really great

o damn I saw Starlite Express when I was like eleven. pretty silly.

Starlight

Dennis Letts (father of Tracy Letts and 'til now appearing in August: Osage County) has died of cancer, alas.

parlour song was pretty good. a little heavy-handed at times, but chris bauer was excellent. emily mortimer, a little blah.

gypsy was... uh... i don't even know how to describe it. traumatizing?

wot, you don't like psycho-mama musicals?

except for the fact that surprise! bill raymond aka 'the greek' from the wire was in it (though a v. small part). funny, seeing two wire actors on stage w/in days of each other!

morbs i spent the whole time wishing i was watching bernadette do it. really the production was just very ehhh and not what you would expect for a 'broadway' production (it's a city center transfer). also, arthur laurents must be getting pretty senile...

I've never seen it, i just know a few of the songs... I would wish I'd seen Merman or Lansbury.

Rock 'n' Roll only has a few days left, and it ain't cheap, and attention is required, but you guys won't regret it.

i wanted to see it, but no time before it closes :(

dunno if jaymc is still reading this thread but if he's interested in checking out goat island's final work it opens in chicago on the 27th of March.

http://www.goatislandperformance.org/current.htm

sadly i'll miss it in glasgow because i'm away that weekend.

Cool, thanks for the tip, jed.

ATC curtain-raises South Pacific

i'd like to go to the theatre in the next couple of weeks, and i want to see something hard-going and bleak, for about a tenner (don't care if i get a shitty seat). in london. any suggestions?
-- emsk ( emsk), Saturday, 18 February 2006 12:32

West Ham v Everton?
-- Alba (Alba), Saturday, 18 February 2006 12:41

--

Bravo!!

LAT Review

I really dislike musicals on the whole, but my aunt wants to take me to that and I'm tempted to see it because it has so many great songs.

Haha, going to a musical about sailors with my aunt. So gay.

i wish i had been at south pacific tonight instead of mamma mia (with visiting in-law who sprung for the tickets).

sting for nolte!!

Brantley swoons

wtf w/ gypsy getting all those raves????

also i saw sunday in the park last weekend... the george was good, probably like him better than mandy, but i just feel like the play itself is problematic... the pretty music and awesome design were not enough to compensate for the fact that the show takes soooo long to go anywhere.

New Yorker
WaPo
Seattle P-I

i saw crooked at the women's project tonight. it was goooood!

saw one of the greatest shows of my life last night at the tramway in glasgow - Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's "Myth". he's one of the main people in the company Ballet C de la B. 20 performers acted out an incredibly intense dance piece based around manga and character based multi level computer games. it really was a stunning and profound experience.

http://www.resmusica.com/images/paris_myth_cherkaoui.jpg

http://files.fluctuat.net/images/m/y/myth-600.jpg

i'm going to see Ann Liv Young's sexually explicit take on "Snow White" tonight. pray i get out in one piece.

http://www.cassero.it/files/gb07/ann_liv_young.jpg

incredible interview with her here:

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/dance/2108/pure-as-the-driven-snow

In her streamlined new show, Snow White, Young dances, has sex with a dildo, screams her head off and sings along to music by Styx, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and Pat Benatar.
...
In Paris, Emily hit me in the face with a sword, really hard, by accident. I played with that; I said something like, “You just hit me in the face. You fucking bitch.” It hurt, but it was also no big deal and she was just mortified and some of the people in the audience really felt for her. In Amsterdam, the dildo fell off during the middle of the show and it’s a vital part of the show—it has to be on her—so I said, “Michael get your ass over there and tape it!” The audience lost it. It’s funny to see what people think is funny. They like it when people are humiliated.

Oh how I hope that show goes on tour.

the Ann Liv Young show? where are you, Eazy?

I'm in Chicago.

New thread idea: 'We don't really care about a nude woman playing Snow White, dancing, having sex with a dildo, screaming her head off and singing along to music by Styx, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and Pat Benatar, do we?'

I am very excited to be going to see Myth tonight, on jed's exhortation!!

Eazy, make the thread.

czn, you will love it. there were only about 80-100 audience members for the show last night & i'm making it my personal mission to get the numbers up for the rest of the run, including going to see it for a second time on saturday.

: D

for Myth:

we really don't care about new york drag queens, 10 foot tall ladies in crinolines, haunted libraries, lovers with downs syndrome, and Japanese stick fighting, do we?

immense

like a psychodrama by tati

damien jalet is hawt:
http://www.aomori-museum.jp/event/dance/japanese/competition/photo_05.jpg

‘In Foi I worked on the theme of angels and people. Now I am looking at the reverse
side: not devils, but shadows. I am interested by the notion of light and shadow. The way I can
manipulate shadows with dancers, so that the shadow ‘does something back’ to reality.
Normally it is the object that creates the shadow, not the other way round. But it is precisely
this reverse thinking that interests me. I want to see whether I can work back to front: what
would happen if the shadow drove me forwards, instead of me creating it? What if that were the
reality? If our reality were actually the mirror-image of the shadow, which in its turn is the real
‘I’? It is an interesting way of thinking, because you change your perspective. You no longer
approach reality on the basis of the limits of what you consider to be reality, but actually take
up an unconventional position. You view things at a different level. You turn the picture over.
The sense of shadow led me to ‘gothic’ people, and to the source of them – Gothic – as well as
to the links between Gothic and depression and melancholy, then ending up at ‘trauma’ again.’

- http://www.fransbrood.com/picts/resource/DOS_Larbi2007_EN.pdf

Tony nominations out -- August: Osage County and STEW! did really well as expected; meant to see Passing Strange by now...

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=46495&cat=2

yeah, i meant to get stew tix before the announcement

Good noms for A:OC -- those were probably the strongest performances in the cast.

is it out of the question for R'n'R or Rufus to win?

Stoppard has about as good a shot for Play as Hillary for prez

who was Rondi Reed in A:OC?

She's a Steppenwolf company member, was one of the sisters married to the guy in Florida, or divorced, or something like that - I don't remember.

If any of you-all happen to be in Chicago between this weekend and June 15, a short play I wrote and directed is running as part of Sketchbook at the Steppenwolf Garage. Also has premieres of new plays by some good playwrights (Itmar Moses, Jose Rivera, Sean Graney, etc.), and some really good actors and directors involved in this thing.

Stoppard has about as good a shot for Play as Hillary for prez

heartfelt emotion tears

I notice Mamet didn't get a play nod for November. Sounds like it was pretty light satire.

As long as I'm self-promoting, a different short play of mine is going to be staged at some kind of Bushwick arts festival at the beginning of June.

was one of the sisters married to the guy in Florida, or divorced, or something like that - I don't remember.

She was Mattie Fae, the aunt -- Violet's sister, Little Charles's mom.

South Pacific, then. Kelli O'Hara, my expectations of whom had originally been low but were raised slightly, was a bit of a letdown. Perfectly good singer, sure, and indubitably more tasteful than Reba McEntire, say, and maybe Mary Martin is a you-can't-go-back-again kind of deal, but she wasn't quite Mitzi Gaynor-in-memory either, and singing wasn't the only issue - I was kinda missing the chemistry that Brantley saw. She did get better/more affecting as the show went along, which I guess is part of the character arc, but seemed kinda tired? Again, no one can be Pinza, but Szot was excellent as expected, with the same relationship caveats. Lowering the romantic temperature highlights the more thoughtful themes, of course, which was probably by design. The surprise was Morrison. I expected him to fall slightly lower than average on the taste scale, maybe making too much of the Timberlake resemblance, but he was more than adequate on both singing and acting fronts. My real stars, though, were the supporting players - Danny Burstein demurely showstealing as Luther Billis and Loretta Ables Sayre wonderful as Bloody Mary, plus the Sea-bees and Li Jun Li as Liat. The production varies between simple but correct and simple but mildly :o. Overall perhaps not worth the hosannas, but I'd still jump at a chance to go again.

I almost had to jump into the Billis part in hS.

who's going to the Polish outdoor Macbeth in Brooklyn?

i should say o'hara's honey bun was fantastic. that's more her speed, plus it had burstein.

Chicago takin over dem Tonys

play
direction
acting
acting
set design too
boo-yah

What kind of drugs make Patti LuPone screech like that? Such a narcissistic horror.

Deanna Dunagan's speech was super, but I thought Ben Brantley nailed Osage's weakness (and I liked it) in yesterday's NYT Week in Review, right down to the Carol Burnett vibe:

Yet even as its squabbling kinfolk take turns vivisecting one another in red-hot blue language, it becomes clear that “August” is also built for comfort. There’s not a confrontation or revelation in it that hasn’t been prefigured by dramas of five and six decades ago: by William Inge, in particular, but also Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets and the Edward Albee of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Audiences whose frame of reference is fixed in television are more likely to see parallels with the sitcom “Mama’s Family,” in which a chronically discontented mother keeps trying to top herself in insulting her grown-up progeny. Acted with undeniable verve by a big ensemble (itself a rarity in Broadway dramas these days), this Steppenwolf production allows theatergoers to feel they’ve experienced a Significant Play without being in any way challenged.

Well, after having a character fellate a chicken drumstick in Killer Joe, Letts wrote a Broadway play instead of an off-Broadway one.

I mean I saw 'Equus' that one time it was showing here and I wanted to care there were horses and great lighting and nudity and EVERYTHING but then after a while I just snuck out and drank some booze in the bar. I like my theatre to be reeeeeeaaaallly groundbreaking and 'controversial' or at least ridiculously musical and over the top otherwise I just don't want to pay that kind of money to sit on my arse and watch people 'have feelings'.

Subversiveness is overrated.

I'm pretty Quaker in my theater tastes. Gimme a 30-seat theater and the alchemy of turning something ordinary into something extraordinary. And use lamps instead of stage lighting if possible.

Having a sledgehammer-obvious Native American character in the attic is overrated.

Oh sure, I'd agree with that. But what are some better American plays written since 1995?

And I don't know if she's overrated as much as overlooked -- I haven't read reviews praising her symbolic role in the play. Though I would say that it adds to the scale of the play having someone outside of the family and the sheriff in the script.

Actually I do like quite naturalistic stuff with really subversive undertones. I'm not asking for people rolling around nekkid in peanut butter and jelly with flashing lights (lights, lights,lights..) screaming out 'APPLE' or nothing, I just want something a little more original.

But what are some better American plays written since 1995?

If i could afford to go I'd know, maybe.

I'm with you there. That's why I go to museums when I go to NYC.

OK, who's got an extra Polish Macbeth ticket? (I probably shdn't go anyway...)

http://www.broadway.com/Gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=569220

In the heights: tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 - I have an extra free ticket if anyone wants it!

BUMP

haha, I thought that was a musical about Brooklyn Heights until I looked it up just now.

so i guess you don't read the arts section, huh...

lol title of thread otm

I do read it sometimes, but I kind of have a musical theatre filter.

if anyone wants to see Rock of Ages, a new 80s rock musical featuring songs of whitesnake, bon jovi, pat benetar, etc., pls to webmail me and i will send you an email with free tix details. lol. (this time you don't have to go with me, if it helps).

btw in the heights was great! and britney spears was there. a winnar is me.

i also saw A Man for All Seasons last weekend. Langella was awesome. the first act's a bit slow, but the second totally makes up for it.

YES, XP (if it doesn't suck)

these are previews tix?

I cannot attest to sucki/nonsuckiness bc I've not yet seen it. Yes, it's starting previews tomorrow (today).

but Thomas More has all the good lines in A Man for All Seasons; the drama is gamed.

he made them really clever! also we had a moment of silence for paul newman after the show. how sweet.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/homepage/pix/kafka2.jpg

Pictures like this drive everyone away from theater.

Unrelated to the photo above, I'm in the middle of directing Alan Ayckbourn's two-evening, six-hour play The Revengers' Comedies at a large state university. We open in three weeks. After years of doing storefront theater in Chicago, it's nice to be doing in a show in a 420-seat theater with all the trimmings.

tza, pls tell me about tix pls!

good luck Eazy. i'm bugging out just now designing my first stage show (production and set design) for the first scottish production (2nd in the UK) of tennesee williams' "and tell sad stories of the deaths of queens". it's just under an hour. i can't imagine the stress a six hour show would involve.

will post pics if i get any good ones. the show is sold out so i don't even know if i'll get to see it!

After reading quite a lot of plays this year I've just been reading a review of 'The Norman Conquests' and thinking about catching at least one of them for a first outing ever ever at a theatre:

http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whatson.php

(good luck jed)

cheers j.

btw, i am coming to london in november to see this:

http://www.forcedentertainment.com/?lid=1081

come and see it, i can't guarantee it will be good but i'm making the 400 mile trip to see it so you can tell i'm a fan.

Ah, Riverside Studios, keep meaning to go to their cinema.

Not knowing whether it will be good is the best recommendation, in my book. I'll be there (not sure which day)

i'm there on saturday. it would be great to see you (this time).

let me confirm that though, i didn't buy the tickets but i'm pretty sure they were for sat.

Yeah, same here - let me know..

anyone interested in seeing lucia di lamermoor tomorrow night, i can get you tix. email me.

that's lucia di lammermoor tomorrow night. lol.

I would if I didn't already have plans... next time?

I didn't know about that Norman Conquests happening at the Old Vic -- looks great.

The epic I'm working on is overwhelming at times, but it's coming together well. Main thing I've learned is that Ayckbourn knows exactly what he's doing with his stage directions, even if it's not until tech that they make perfect sense instead of just being a moment of color.

Yesterday, I saw a run-through of a stage adaptation of George Saunders's short story Jon at a theater here in Chicago. Opens in a few weeks, and it was really extrordinary.

i would have liked to see this new seagull, and also dr. atomic, but of course i'm not going to becz they're expensive and i never have any time anyway. :(
living in new york can be frustrating.

Eazy, what did you say about Dr. Atomic screenings (I think this was on a Facebook status update or something)?

I crashed Dr. Atomic at intermission in Chicago, and loved it. I figured some folks would be leaving at intermission, especially season ticket holders, and ended up getting an eleventh-row seat. That was the Peter Sellars production. The new one looks good if a bit more obvious -- I'm planning to see the live screening of it in November.

xpost!

Yeah, I would go see that with you.

Noon on the 8th in Evanston could work fine for me.

will keep you in mind, forks! i can't go tomorrow night (stupid class), but i saw this production last year and it was great. i can also attest that diana damrau sounds AMAZING. am going to doctor atomic on 10/25 (not free but whatever) and i can not wait!!!! the music is niccce.

gabb, sorry bout rock of ages! i didn't see your msg on the thread... that's why i initially said interested parties should email me (webmail me if you don't know address) so i could forward along the ticket acquiring info.

it was a pretty hilarious show in that there was a silly girl-meets-boy story line thrown together so that at key moments of heartbreak they could burst into 80s song. finally won me over about halfway through the first act with foreigner's "i want to know what love is." also, they let you drink in the theater. that helped. don't see it running too incredibly long, but former american idol contestant constantine was not bad.

also, for major lols, i am seeing mary poppins on sunday! was considering the language of trees as well, but i need more time not spent in dark rooms, i think. especially before weather is bad.

also tipsy - they have added more rush tix for all perfs of atomic (not just weeknights), so you could get orch seating for $20 or $30 if you luck out.

new production is supposedly pretty static as far as staging, but i think the music may make up for it. it is so gorgeous. the director is super nice, though! (not that that makes up for weird staging, but i think this is also her first foray into opera, having previously worked in film, so i can see how it might be easy to fall in the trap of being too static in staging if you're used to working with a camera). finley and cooke sound really great, though!

Theater folks have been e-mailing around this article from The Stranger: "Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves. The "they let you drink in the theater" above reminded me of this.

yeah, my colleagues and i keep coming back to the conversation of making theater-going an "experience" as a means to attract audiences. the babysitting idea also falls into this. Arena Stage in DC is a good example - their new facility will be much more of a 'community' w the surrounding waterfront shops, etc. some places do a 7pm "rush hour" show to get you in and out earlier on a weeknight, too.

i guess the rush hour deal is kind of the opposite of creating an "experience" but both ideas make things more accessible.

rock of ages again... email me.

Julio, saturday for definite.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/theater/29arts-LAURENGRAHAM_BRF.html?em

this is not necessarily looking promising

saw atomic last weekend. loved it. it IS kind static in the 2nd act, but i think that it sort of fits the "hurry up and wait" feel of what was happening. still gets a little difficult to watch sometimes but i kind of like the idea that it makes you uncomfortable. it's really an uncomfortable subject. anyway, i think that the music more than makes up for it, especially oppenheimer's aria at the end of act 1 (almost like baroque sighing... so f***ing gorgeous!) and the scenes with kitty (just learned the woman playing her is younger than i am, which makes me want to go jump out a window or something).

Timely revival - just this very minute off to the Old Vic to see 'Table Manners' from Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests.

hey jaymc and eazy, what is it about doctor atomic that has inspired you to commit to going to see it in the movie theater? john adams? atomic bomb? anything to do with seeing opera in the movies? i am curious... i can't get any of my friends to go see anything.

Let us know how it goes.

I thought I'd heard of Ayckbourn's name before and it finally hit this week that it was in connection to Alain Resnais, he adapted one of his plays to his last film Private Fears in Public Places. Really liked it myself but its lodged in my memory as the last time I heard a random punter act all angry at a film at the end of its screening. xp

hey jaymc and eazy, what is it about doctor atomic that has inspired you to commit to going to see it in the movie theater?

It came out of being a huge admirer of Peter Sellars, who directed the pre-Met productions of Doctor Atomic. Until the NYTimes articles a few weeks ago, I had assumed this would be his production. So that's what drew me in, but I'm still interested in seeing this new version.

Sellars understands as much as anyone alive about the fundamental nature of live theater. I heard him give a talk at the University of Chicago earlier this year and scribbled down everything I could -- typed up my notes in two parts: here and here.

Here's a camera-phone still from my current production of The Revengers Comedies:
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z128/ericzieg/revengers4.jpg?t=1225481168

Well finally got to the theatre this evening for one of the 3 Ayckbourn Norman Conquests plays, which are being revived in London after 34 years apparently).

(Struck down by norovirus just as reached Old Vic theatre last week. Messy)

Pretty good...the first half dragged slightly, but the second half was excellent. It was impressively funny and cynical about the emptiness of middle-class life.

The eponymous anti-hero (?) Norman is a librarian - so it should be an ILX friendly.

Have now booked to see the two remaining plays of the trilogy.

i could go and see these for a fiver a time, being a local resident. the seats you get are really shit though, apparently.

I think they're definitely worth a fiver - even in Upper Circle restricted view seats.

I'd forgotten that the main problem with theatre as an art form is the rest of the audience - which tonight triggered all my prejudices of the upper middle classes - and included my pet hate, over-assertive/loud laughers.

anyone excited about the bridge project?

ooooh boy: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/arts/music/08oper.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

xp - yeah, but not sure if I should subscribe

hey jaymc and eazy, what is it about doctor atomic that has inspired you to commit to going to see it in the movie theater? john adams? atomic bomb? anything to do with seeing opera in the movies? i am curious... i can't get any of my friends to go see anything.

A big part of it for me is the desire to see contemporary theater (which includes new operas) without paying contemporary theater prices. Also a mild interest in John Adams (I've only heard Nixon in China -- on CD, 10 years ago -- but seeing as how I'm a big Glass/Reich fan, I've always wanted to get into his stuff more) and dramatic treatments of American history.

without paying contemporary theater prices

Apparently it still costs $24 to see the opera in the movie theater. I didn't go.

a decent seat at the real thing starts at $80

Yesterday, I saw a run-through of a stage adaptation of George Saunders's short story Jon at a theater here in Chicago. Opens in a few weeks, and it was really extrordinary.

WOW

xp I'll wait for the DVD.

have an extra for On the Town tomorrow

i saw dividing the estate last week and it was offensively bad. going to pal joey next friday and i'm psyched!

i could have predicted the first part. i wouldn't mind seeing martha plimpton, but i think i'll probably pass on that one.

i saw a great on the town just a few years ago in LA. i only got the tix really so my friend could see it.

Apparently, my parents went last night and say it's great, so I'm definitely going. Free ticket if you want to come too.

great I don't know about, but I had a great time on the whole. the LA show I saw (by the Reprise company, now run by Jason Alexander) was a lower-budget production, but with more heart and probably better, in no small part because everyone in the cast was a real actor, singer, and (most importantly) dancer, whereas some of the leads here obviously didn't have a lot of dance experience (maybe it was supposed to be part of the character, but i don't think so), and the choreography wasn't as fresh. and while i don't know how much time these guys took to rehearse, they needed books for dialogue, whereas the LA people did without after two weeks. and the production was a little awkward, at least at first - acting/singing in front of the orchestra, dancing on a riser behind it (at least everyone could see the latter well). the worst part was the totally, well, milquetoast Gabey (who the NYT liked). i mean, i guess he was touching in a moment or two and i know the character isn't supposed to be a stud or anything, but once you've gone Gene Kelly, you better be good in going back. and the Chip was simply boring. but the Ozzie was great, and the chemistry with Claire - the best voice in the house (per usual?) - was wonderful. the Hildy was a little broadway-brassy for my taste, but pretty good, and the Ivy, while adequate otherwise, was an accomplished dancer. i don't know whether to excuse dropping the midwestern-background-exposition with Ivy and Gabey (was that not in the play? don't remember), but the Madame Dilly, while going a little overboard on your standard-Broadway-all-broad-sex-references-are-obviously-hilarious brought the house down. and Michael Cumpsty (! - I had no idea) was great as Pitkin, of course. as was the orchestra, and ultimately you can't really fuck with that music/story.

or maybe i just had better seats in LA and have been ruined by seeing a lot of serious dance since that show

no, i think it was better

almost $300 for Guys 'n Dolls?! seriously?!

my professional opinion on pal joey: if you are going to charge $100 for a broadway ticket, pls to be getting actors who can SING on pitch and with some level of dynamic variance. i think it is bull that the "best" stages in the country put mediocre talent up. who is doing this casting? stockard channing can't sing - this i understand, and that is fine, because it's stockard channing in yr show and she's a sassy broad, etc. however, the rest of the cast should be GOOD. admittedly understudy for joey (last min fill-in) is new to it, but he just does not have the vocal chops, and i don't think he will grow into the role. linda english character: nice acting, but her top end sucked in the songs, and she had no sense of phrasing or artistry. it's really a shame because the throwback stuff is really fun to watch, and the production value was great, but i spent the whole time being pissed that they didn't cast the thing better and that i could think of a handful of people i know who could have done a better job in most of the roles. this is basically why i have a hard time liking most broadway stuff, not just this show, but man, is it frustrating to watch!

nb i didn't pay $100, but people do!!

otm

i think this is a big part of why i will always like opera better. and bc opera is taken more seriously i guess? sure, you get dud singers, but for some reason the whole thing just seems better to me. i have seen some crappy opera, too, but in general, the bad operas i have seen were still more entertaining/fulfilling than 90% of what i've seen on broadway in the past year. i think broadway just has some formula that they plug things into for each show, and for the most part they all come off as variations of the same bad experience.

they do, but not always - the singing tends to get better with more serious/operatic material, and more independent/one-off productions - Lincoln Center, Encores, etc. i've also seen really great musicals in DC (Arena Stage) and LA (Reprise). Roundabout seems to have become a bit too star-focused, a victim of its own success.

i don't expect too much from this Guys and Dolls, but I'm not sure I can resist

hey, what's this Musical Theatre Guild in LA?

forgotten gems and undiscovered treasures in staged concert format!

I think theyre selling this "Joey" on the "honest" book...

oh god don't get me started on f***ing greenberg and his heavy handed "omg this character is GAY!" crap.

o i didnt know about such things.

you around tnite, tza? i'll be at new-wave bar.

ok wow just looking at the wiki synopsis of this show it is now clear how much greenberg mucked it up. ugh. this makes me even more angry!

yeah, i'm around! new-wave bar = metropolitan?

yes! may not get there til 12:30....

i just know prevvious stage/film versions of PJ made him less of a 'heel'. u know, so audiences could 'identify.'

that brings me to a whole other issue that i feel theater should not dumb itself down for the masses. seriously, a character who is not necessarily 'feel good' is not someone you need to dumb down! jeez. it's not "challenging" because he is, oh i don't know, like 65% of men out there, and i resent that producers/directors/writers lower themselves to that kind of audience pandering.

not as inspired as the original production, but there are rush tix avail for black watch

ok, serious follow-up now on pal joey - tehresa, are your objections more professional than anything else? i mean, say you're definitely an opera/throwback person (not a contempo broadway person) and are sensitive to singing quality (and grew up with the original recordings), but $ are more fungible to you and you're not a singer yourself. would you enjoy this fairly well?

thankig u in advance

if you are sensitive to singing quality, i would not see it. you're definitely not going to get the satisfaction of the music you're used to with the og recording (this is based on me listening to clips of original for comparison). the vocal energy/sparkle/pizazz that makes throwbacks so fun just isn't there. if you enjoy the throwback fancy costumes, etc. enough that you can tolerate mediocre singing, i would see it. if you think martha plimpton is hot, i would see it.

haha, i had a crush on a martha plimpton character when i was a kid, and she sound mildly interesting, but i'd rather see her in a play (like the coast of utopia, which i never got to). i am thinking about getting tix for other people, tho. is the orchestra any good?

it's fine. nothing amazing, not bad. i find that setup so weird though (lofted on either side of audience). way to make it obvious that the orchestra was clearly an afterthought to your theater renovation!

thanks

i saw august: osage county yesterday -- i really liked it. loved it even

here are some images from my bf's production of Tennessee Williams' rarely performed "And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens". he directed it and i did the set and production design (and built it too!). the space was a traverse stage, which means there are banks of seating rising up at opposite sides of the space. unusually the seating is on the short ends rather than on the long ends. a very small space with about 70 audience members per night. the intimacy definitely worked in favour of the production. you really felt like you were right in candy's drawing room.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050371.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050395.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050465.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050531.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050691.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050664.jpg

one more:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v369/colinohara/P1050764.jpg

that's gorgeous! congratulations

thanks!

that look intersting!

rearranging the deck chairs
;_;

srsly guys 3.5 minutes KILLS your message.

rumors of steel to save nyco... hmmm!

didn't he just go somewhere else?

Wow, bad review in today's Times for Pal Joey.

Silver lining to Piven having to leave Speed-The-Plow:
On Thursday the producers of “Speed-the-Plow” said that Mr. Piven’s role as the Hollywood producer Bobby Gould would be taken over first by Norbert Leo Butz and then by William H. Macy. Mr. Butz is to play the role from Tuesday through Jan. 11, they said, and Mr. Macy is to take it on from Jan. 13 through Feb. 22, when the show is scheduled to close at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Mr. Piven’s understudy, Jordan Lage, will continue to perform the role through Sunday.

yeah he just went to dalas....

lol see ask tehresa thread for my take on that review!

i want to see speed the plow - i've heard it's really great. macy is gold for them!

working on getting in to see hedda gabler w/ mary louise parker :D

the one with cate blanchett was so gooood, i dunno if i can take another hedda! but it would be interesting. it's hard for me to see her in the part. i wonder how modern they're going to go with it

the last thing i ever saw in the theatre (that wasn't dance or experimental movement stuff) was "Long Day's Journey Into Night," with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert Sean Leonard, Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennehy.

which explains why i never will go to see anything on Broadway again-- that experience trumped all, and will always forever trump all.

No, it doesn't! I saw LDJiN twice in the '80s w/ 2 diff casts, and would see more.

despite my theatre nerdiness in high school, never again-- it took one college production for me to say, 'fuck this shit' for the rest of my life. i'll write them, though, and i love reading a good one. Will Eno and Martin Scrimp are my current faves. Doug Dorst is pretty good, too.

in high school, i was:
- Sky Masterson (hah hah, luck be a lady, that was some funny stuff for my young faggot voice to be crooning)
- Pishchik in the Cherry Orchard
- assistant director on Endgame
- the H.L. Mencken character in that one about the Scopes Monkey Trial.
- Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband (best role ever)
- the son in Curse of the Starving Class, which I also directed and was my senior 'thesis' or whatever. fun but exhausting, got me smoking cigarettes again by the end, a habit i have never quite again except for some brief months.

anyway....

Did you do that naked part in Curse of the Starving Class?

Next month, the Goodman in Chicago is doing a whole bunch of O'Neill, including one by the Wooster Group and another one directed by Robert Falls (who did that Long Day's Journey on Broadway), featuring Dennehy and the cute female agent from Entourage.

http://www.goodmantheatre.org/images/season/Desire_160X180.jpg

FYI, EZ, we're going to see Jon tonight after all.

Oh, good. I'll probably be there for the post-show talk with G. Saunders.

That's lovely jed!

thanks, julio.

can i recommend something for you?

http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Alain-Platels-pitie

sam and i may come and see it too so maybe we'll meet again! i'll keep you posted. Les Ballets C. de la B. are amazing.

That looks excellent. I'll put it on the calendar but yeah keep me posted!

ok so...my mom's visiting nyc in february and since she likes theater i usually take her to something as a belated christmas present. usually off-broadway, she's not really interested in the musicals and whatnot. looking around this year, i'm thinking about buying tix for upcoming "uncle vanya" w/denis o'hare, maggie gyllenhaal and peter sarsgaard. what are the odds that it will be worth a look? (and/or does anyone have any other suggestions?)

Get a ticket early for Our Town at the 199-seat Barrow Street Theatre. I know, Our Town, but it's going to be the big show of early '09, based on how it ran in Chicago and the all the justifiable NYC hype that director David Cromer has been getting. (NY Times critic picked the Chicago version as one of the top 10 shows of '08.)

hmm. does sound good. maybe i'll wait a week and see if they announce dates.

tipsy i'm gonna see hedda gabler soon maybe that is another good option?

also if anyone is interested in this on saturday:

Founded in 1984 under the artistic direction of Maggi Sietsma, Expressions Dance Company is known across the globe for its highly athletic and theatrical brand of dance. This Australian company performs the New York City premiere of Score!, a new multimedia dance-theater piece inspired by Michel Fokine's ballet Petrushka and set in the insanely competitive world of reality TV. Packed with strikingly physicality, Score! incorporates live footage, video projections, and spoken word into this gripping tale of two contestants battling for the ultimate prize.

free if you don't mind making the trek to flatbush with me.

seeing this tomorrow night @ Here:

Removable Parts:
A theatrical series of love songs about voluntary amputation in which the unrequited lover – whose heart is broken – begins to question the usefulness of his other body parts.

kinda psyched

Gypsy tom'w night for me.

Robert Ashley operas at La Mama starting on the 15th; i'm probably going to all three, if anyone wants to do drinks or dinner before or after one night shoot me an e-mail.

Removable parts was awesome. Really touching but just when it started to get heart-wrenching it switched gears to keep you from being a sad sack. I really liked it!

Ian, I'm totally down.

I might have time for one of those.

Not a big fan of LuPone's (current) voice, but Gypsy was worth the discount ticket. Now I gotta get a gimmick.

*shaking head*

what're yer gripes?

the staging was horrendous, the acting was horrible. i thought benanti was lame and uninteresting and not tony caliber at all and lupone was screechy and over the top (but not in a good way, even for mama rose). i enjoy old musicals, so it's not that i just don't like the show, i just felt like it was some of the worst 3 hours of my life in that theater.

wtf @ that sheep!

You're just not gonna see that on stage anywhere else, and American culture is poorer for it.

wait american culture is poorer for not seeing bad acting and a shitty production?

oh, c'mon. I'd hate to think where you'd place the 3 hours I spent seeing The Wild Party!

We live in a world where revivals of Grease run for years every decade.

that doesn't mean that anything not hairspray or grease revival is automatically better!

even if the show might be better on the surface, you still need a good production/cast. if you can't make me feel anything, i don't care how famous you are. even the bette midler tv movie was more moving imo.

xp: It does if it has a song called "Have an Eggroll, Mr. Goldstone."

I'm not sure the audience even got that the June/Louise acts were sposed to be bad until the characters said so.

Sorry tza, I did get a mild case of goosebumps at "Everything's Coming Up Roses."

I never saw any other version, but I recall Peter Riegert was Herbie opposite the Dreaded Bette. dnw Midler tho.

plus, you felt disgust lol

my audience "got it"

fwiw hairspray and this gypsy were both mounted by the same producers so i don't think you can really make any argument that one is inherently more artful in its intent, regardless of the date it was written.

i was not goosebumped by ecur.

All sorts of variable persons and things are mounted by Broadway producers.

It's harder to screw up Gypsy than a John Waters film whose chief asset is the period music THAT'S REMOVED for a new score!

(i decided against the gyllenhaal vanya mentioned above; going to cripple of inishmaan instead.)

good Irish miserabilism!

When I re-read your post saying "denis o'hare and maggie g in vanya", I started thinking of Denis Leary in Vanya. I'd like to direct that.

It's harder to screw up Gypsy than a John Waters film whose chief asset is the period music THAT'S REMOVED for a new score!

obviously this is going to get me nowhere, but retooling a score to make a commercially viable adaptation (sorry, things don't go to bw unless they have some commercial goals in mind, even w/ the bw not-for-profits, and waters sold rights for it so he had to realize it was going to happen) is one thing that while artistically "questionable" is somewhat justifiable, but putting up a half-assed production (that did not receive good reviews the 1st time it ran at city center) and charging $125 for it is not acceptable to me.

Haven't read the Times review yet, but the summary for Hedda Gabler is

That the director Ian Rickson is responsible for one of the worst revivals I have ever, ever seen has me flummoxed.

i have been trying to figure out how i feel about that production for the past week and i am just not sure. the pacing was REALLY weird. pj harvey's music was neat but i hate trying to put sound design like that in a straight play. it just seems so out of place. i feel like at times it was hard to forget her weeds character because her range was at times very similar to nancy botwin's more sarcastic/frustrated moments. i was really disappointed by peter stormare. i usually love him and expected a lot, but he was pretty awkward, not in a good way.

maybe i should be glad i've seen weeds all of twice. that probably helped. otm re sound design.

i liked it though, had no expectations coming in and was just happy to go for free

you know, i do feel that MLP's range can be very limited.

yeah i have certainly seen a lot worse theater in the past year. i didn't hate it. i don't usually agree w/ brantley anyway. i just haven't been able to say i loved it or hated it... i almost don't have much of an opinion at all.

i'm currently deciding whether or not to spend 3 hours of my life at The Cherry Orchard

can you do so for free? i'd say give it a shot if so.

MLP did plenty of theatre before becoming a cable star, i dunno about her range tho

We care about (musical, mostly) theatre.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45411000/jpg/_45411582__44409308_hair_body_pa-1.jpg

^^what people think of when they think of theater

er, that's
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45411000/jpg/_45411582__44409308_hair_body_pa-1.jpg

RIP Anna Manahan; really strong in The Beauty Queen of Leenane:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/arts/10manahan.html

Trying to figure if I want to gamble on Nathan Lane & Bill Irwin in Godot -- I have a $20 tix email.

i'm currently deciding whether or not to spend 3 hours of my life at The Cherry Orchard

― Surmounter, Monday, January 26, 2009 12:38 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can you do so for free? i'd say give it a shot if so.

― tehresa, Monday, January 26, 2009 12:41 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i didn't end up doing this. but i have no shame. just not my cup o tea

Morbius just GODOIT

The only WfG prod i've seen was Mike Nichols' 20 years ago w/ Steve Martin & Robin Williams (and Bill Irwin as Lucky)...

this thread is quite frustrating because we all seem to be talking about wildly different things but i'm glad it's here nonetheless.

the next two months in glasgow have some great things upcoming:

anne liv young is bringing her newest thing "the bagwell in me" to the arches theatre festival which is also putting on Belgian troup Ontroerend Goed company's "Once and for All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen". excited for that.

talking of the Belgians, who are undoubtedly creating the best theatre in the world, the Tramway are mounting an international series (4 Belgian companies and none from anywhere else lol) comprising Jan Fabre's "Orgy of Tolerance", Victoria's "Venizke", C de la B's newest large scale work, "Ashes" and Wayne Traub's "Maria-Magdalena" (although i'm pretty meh about Traub).

i'm so psyched.

i was supposed to be heading to Antwerp to see the latest Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui piece but it seems that has been nixed for financial reasons.

my bf has been asked to direct quite a major thing based (loosly) on the early life of Louise Bourgeouis and i'm going to be designing it too. thriled.

still haven't seen anything by anne liv young. keep hearing things about her -- a couple of my friends know her/have worked with her

sur, you just missed "sherry's march madness" which was a performance in the shape of a fucked up cocktail party (or something) in her own apartment in NYC. sonds pretty lol.

if you are interested you should add her company as a friend on facebook. she does lots of small scale things like that and posts invites to them to "fans" through fb.

yeah, i guess she does that fairly often? one of my friends was in one of her apt pieces a little while ago. SHIRTLESS no less :)

haha, her "snow white" ended with her getting two men in the audience to strip off and close-dance with her on stage (she was naked) while she told the rest of the audience to get out of the auditorium (which we duly did, she's not the sort of person you would defy). she was trying to get them naked too but they only went as far as SHIRTLESS.

i've just skimmed some stuff about her shows, and man, they would annoy me

but you are easily annoyed.

well, ive had 25 years to get annoyed by stuff like that.

the line between annoying and innovative is an important one, nonetheless

and long may it continue.

"stuff like that" doesn't really cover it. i've seen a lot of performance, most of it bad, and her work is pretty unique.

xpost

some of my coworkers saw that one where she plays George and Martha Washington. on-stage cunnilingus etc... i was kind of annoyed i missed it

obv I dunno, I'd have to see it. I'm a lot more wary of "innovative" tags than I was 20 years ago.

I'm interested in how performance art isn't called performance art anymore, so folks don't go into it with the same preconceptions.

lol at dance turning into "movement"

i'm wary of "innovative" too, but i still embrace it. we would be at a disadvantage if we didn't have these sorts of extremeties on the spectrum.

dance vs. choreography is an important, tho basic, distinction tho, imo

There's also a lot of literary performance going on now that blurs the line between a reading and theater, but has nothing to do with "spoken word" or "poetry slams" -- much closer to what David Sedaris does. Another case where it's kind of exciting that there isn't terminology for it, just that there's an audience who is drawn to it ("Hey, it's like David Sedaris, but it's free and in the back of a bar"). Groups like this one and this one.

Any Londoners gonna see (or have seen) Mishima's Madame De Sade.

saw two nights of stunning quebecois dance from Sylvain Émard Danse

http://www.ladansesurlesroutes.com/res/photo/Wave_2436.jpg

amd Cas Public

http://www.ubishops.ca/centennial/pictures/program/cas-public-1.jpg
http://www.ubishops.ca/centennial/pictures/program/cas-public-2.jpg

both mindlblowing! i LOVE this stuff.

amd, and, whatever!

hey! update my dance performance thread!!

and i can tell you there how jealous i am of you cuz that looks awesome

Dance performance C/D S/D

such a treat. genuinely thought provoking and life affirming!

xpost was that the dildos, snow white etc thread?

sur, it was gorgeous and (the second one) sexy!!! all of the dancers either on point (the women) or in high hells (the men).and the men were like o_O look at that body.

agree on awesome...

meanwhile Madame de Sade is getting bad reviews, however some of the reasons (that it isn't dramatic and the like) still make me want to see it. xp

julio, sorry about not responding to your email of a month+ ago. i couldn't afford the trip in the end.

That's ok jed, not to worry - do let me know if you come round again.

And if I go to Glasgow/Edinburgh to see a dance company/or a play that you've designed I will let you know :-)

:D

julio, ann liv young at the batterea arts centre from the 15th to the 19th of may.

http://www.annlivyoung.com/performancepage.html

its on

"More recently Young has loosened the reins. "Snow White," in particular, has become indelibly deconstructed. "It got to the point where we didn't even do the show," she recalled. "I would say: 'You know, I really don't feel like doing this. How about let's do a question-and-answer session?' And people would get really angry. They felt cheated.""

this is exactly what happened when i saw it. 2/3rds of the way through she goes "ok, this is shit, this isn't working and i can tell you [the audience] are bored. let's do the radio show" cut to all the perfomers clearing the stage to mount the sub-show followed by getting the audience up on stage and trying to get them to strip off. j, i recommend you sink as far down in your seat as you can so she can't pick you out!

i rly don't know what i would do

one guy i see out at these events has become, in my head, 'that guy "peter" that stripped off and danced with ann liv young while she told the sudience to leave the auditorium'.

audience! i'm slightly tipsy.

orgy of tolerance

orgy of tolerance

orgy of lolerance?

i like it!

saw godot with lane/goodman/irwin. irwin was awesome. i hate lane. if i closed my eyes it could have been pumba saying the lines. i hated how they sentimentalized the end. ugh.

another thing: extra general admission ticket available for the philanthropist on saturday (new christopher hampton play starring matthew broderick). anyone want it? the only weird part is i'll be there w/ mom/dadrza lol.

Saw Orgy of Tolerance on Wednesday night. I saw it as a bunch of 'tableaux': really well put together, the final dance off was brilliant -- and one of two LOL moments for me; the other was the 'Come Together' bit.

Wasn't so hot on any underlying ideas, and maybe that's why I wasn't laughing as much and finding it as funny as I thought I could. This constant evasion and pre-emption; the need to not be pegged down...ultimately this got pretty tiresome. I liked the title of this A LOT but the promise, ultimately, was not to be fulfilled.

Glad I went.

i'm glad you went and your thoughts echo mine to some extent but, even though some of the ideas are pretty adolescent and some of the scenes didn't work (specifically the stylist making over J C which was a major misfire) i was carried away by the enthusuasm of the whole thing and it is extremely well crafted in spite of seeming random.

i mean, the shopping trolley waltz and the rifle-up-the-arse were worth the price of admission alone and there were many many more great scenes than that.

having said that it was probably only the 3rd or 4th best thing i have seen this year so far.

on monday i saw one of my (two) favourites things of this year, Ontroerend Goed's "Once And For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen". The show is preformed by teenagers and intended for teenagers and adults. i thought it was completely thrilling. a example of just how great devised theatre can be. if you get a chance to see this run, don't walk. i took my 14 year olf neice to see it and she left like this *_*

"i mean, the shopping trolley waltz and the rifle-up-the-arse were worth the price of admission alone and there were many many more great scenes than that."

I can definitely agree that you can't fault it if you go on a pure scene by scene basis, the hit rate is high, and the very first 10 mins did the whole take no prisoners thing well.

I didn't find it all that random because I could see the underlying idea that connected the scenes.

I went to see the newish Enda Walsh play The New Electric Ballroom (guy who wrote dialogue for Hunger, Disco Pigs) incredibly ornate Midlands-Gothic-High-Camp melodrama. It drew on equal parts Pinter, Waters and McCabe, which was a pretty awesome combo imo. Mikel Murfi pretty much redeemed himself for a decades worth of trading in on Galway Arts Festival goodwill. Great playful subversion of William Trevor Ballroom of romance RTE orthodoxy, genuinely unsettling revision of 1960's Ireland, even now more than fifteen years after the Butcher Boy. Obscenely brilliant stage design, A+ would be freaked out again.

ann liv young's "The Bagwell In Me" is truly incredible. i'm kind of speechless. it's hard to describe or explain just why it is so good. it's a huge leap forward from Snow white. quite possibly a work of genius.

going to see 'angela's mixtape' tonight. friend has offered me 'pay what you can' tix - anyone interested in joining?

Cherry Orchard pretty good, Mary Stuart great

philanthropist was mildly entertaining but overall something not worth seeing - there's no substance to it. i was more offended by godot, maybe because they did such a horrible job with a great play. this just wasn't a great play.

i'm not going to get to see the London Godot as I had thought :( i saw an Intiman production as a teenager.

If that was '91 or so, I saw that Intiman production as a 20-year-old.

that was it

angela's mixtape was pretty good! super funny at times, totally touching at others. eisa davis is some kind of superhuman and it's worth going just to watch her.
also, fun mixes on the blog: http://is.gd/r3m5

my mother is making me see a broadway play with the family, but i get to choose what to see. i've really got no interest or knowledge in this (though i used to love going when i was in HS), so what would yall recommend?

http://disney.go.com/theatre/redirect/littlemermaid/images/03-broadwaylogo.jpg

http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/webgraphics/Animations/hearts-afire.gif

http://www.salsacyprus.com/congress2009/img/correct.gif

did anyone see west side story?

^this is what my mom wanted to see. i'd be down with it i guess...i did like the movie.

dunno if yall are trolling me w/ little mermaid, but it is pretty appealing. saw beauty and the beast a few years ago and liked

mary poppins is not bad - darker and more fun than the movie, but still geared towards kids.

the little mermaid is supposed to be totally horrible. i will still rep for the lion king.

tony noms here: http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/index.html
but are not necessarily a good indicator of what is actually worth seeing.

i've heard great things about mary stuart. billy elliot is supposedly just like the movie but enjoyable, fwiw. i'm interested in west side story, esp the bit about incorporating more spanish. i wonder what the effect is.

http://famespy.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/rock-of-ages1.jpg

Tony-nominated!

the best show on broadway right now is probably the britishes sex farce about unhappy families/marriages The Norman Conquests, which when seen in full is an all-day affair. this is obv what you should see w/ your mom.

tbh it was pretty fun when i saw it off-broadway! probably better suited to broadway, actually, because it appeals more to tourists/non-trad theater-goers than something with the 'off-broadway' connotation of 'more artsy'. also: scantily clad women and a former american idol contestant. and they let you drink while you watch.

oh wait it's not 'on broadway'. nm.

i still want to see it, but i've already spent money this season on a Steel Panther show (of shame)

"ann liv young's "The Bagwell In Me" is truly incredible. i'm kind of speechless. it's hard to describe or explain just why it is so good. it's a huge leap forward from Snow white. quite possibly a work of genius."

So I went to this last night - just checking, comparing notes before I go any further (and I may need to be drunker than I currently am, even after nearly 24 hours after seeing it -- which is not AT ALL).

Did Ann Liv start her show then stop after five mins, have a RAGING argument with the sound guy (who then left), then demand to see the guy who ran the venue, asking him questions on stuff like MARKETING (getting him to answer with the microphone distorted in a 'chipmunk' sorta mode) and THEN go on to have a discussion with the audience (only 25 of us, she counted 'em) about stuff like what was going to be in the show but that she wouldn't perform, as well as talking about marketing THEN getting onto perform bits of the show (stopping every now and again for a 'soundcheck') but FINALLY getting going, performing what I imagine were scenes from a show we would only ever have in our heads if it were something approaching 'professional', amazingly screaming and hollering through a few of the hits of the pop parade that were distorted to shit on the sound system...totally guerilla-not-giving-a-flying-fuck style before er actually fucking the girl who played George Washington's slave on the show with a strap on (there was a camera guy and a small screen so we all got the angle, I guess we can buy the DVD now).

Did the above (only some of the highlights, but I think I've said enough) also happen in Glasgow?

Anyway: I do care about theatre now :-)

yes!!! i'm so thrilled with this response.

no, none of the argument stuff happened in glasgow just some very minor to and fro with the sound guy about using the wrong effects and it NOT BEING FUCKING LOUD ENOUGH.

re the fucking: the penetration didn't actually happen in glasgow because the venue wouldn't allow it (backstory: the venue is currently under investigation by glasgow city council for having real sex taken place at a gay club night and the council may prosecute) so that set her off on a rant about how she wasn't allowed to do it. so she did it without the penetration describing to us what should actually be happening.

julio the show is genuinely hysterical too, no? i haven't laughed so much in years.

p.s. was there a projection of the ex culture minister chris smith on a screen throughout the show?

but but but, for all that is seems anarchic and out of control she floors you with an image or an idea that is shocking in its directness and beauty. it's breathtakiing at times.

The whole argument was over the not loud enough/wrong effect, as far as I could tell. At first I thought it was acted but no, it was true - I hung around with some people and had a beer as we had to digest what just happened (one of the most likeable aspect of the whole thing) and the girl I chatted to found out about it. This is the aspect of the show that I would have a v hard time in trying to defend, and I wanted to defend ALL OF IT -- be it the accusations of 'no plot'/'indulgence' etc -- there was an abuse of trust here (the sound man apparently worked w/her trying to get it right over the weekend), as I was thinking last night. Nobody is going to die, sure, but still...

It was hilarious -- I think I was laughing way too much right from the word go. Couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. She gave me a hard look to get me to stop at one point but it was a 'controlled' anger, she knows her craft and what she wants out of an audience.

No there was no Chris Smith! Only her on stage live porno made it onto the screen.

I also laughed on the train home because someone was listening to Michael Jackson (two Jackson songs performed in the show). You cannot make this up I tells ya!! xxp = yes, defintely, I should the songs and some of the performance was brilliant, but also much of that got lost, somehow? I wanted to go again tonight, but was too tired... (did it even go ahead?)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/how-to-write-for-the-theater1jpg.jpg

how are the wooster group these days? thinking about seeing their production of la didone at REDCAT later this month, wondering if i should bother?

totally stoked for Stoppard's Rock and Roll this weekend ... anyone have an opinion?

wonderful play, though your cast won't be like the Broadway one

think i might've told this story before on ILX, but oh well...four or five years ago i was working in a massive fuck off rec shop on oxford st when who shld walk in but tom stoppard. he proceeded to ask me a series of fairly oblique questions abt this and that...i can't really remember the convo at all, but i do vividly recall that he suddenly got v v interested when i told him there was a group called tortoise!

Right, so if Stoppard plays a Tortoise track on Desert Island Discs we'll know the source ;-)