We really don't care about theatre do we?

Off to Other Desert Cities tonight (annual Broadway splurge); haven't seen Stockard Channing in awhile (2 Guare plays) and Stacy Keach never...

saw brimstone and treacle at the arcola in dalston (london) last night... very good though lots of changes from potter's original, and hackneyed use of punk music between acts to show changing britain or some similarly dumb overdone thing.

only saw the film with Shting

jesus just googled that, crazy! is it any good?

the original tv play is brilliant.

stage version last night did have the amusing cliffhanger at the end whereby nobody wanted to applaud too soon after the rape scene that ends it. long, long and awkward silence.

I remember it being good... probably the 3rd Potter I saw after the two versions of Pennies from Heaven.

Plug plug plug to New Yorkers:

A show I adapted and directed is going to run in NYC in August. Details here and here.

thx Eazy.

I'll be at all the shows--say hi if you make it there.

Tech-ed my show today. Love being next door to Mamoun's and the Comedy Cellar.

Showtimes:
http://www.nyc-arts.org/events/20291/fringenyc-an-interrogation-primer

hah, I was at Mamoun's at 6pm... I'll have to figure this out

Saw Sam Shepard's new play, Heartless, last night. As always with him, very hit or miss, but some moments that work are sticking with me. Truly weird, rather than the more naturalistic True West, et al. Back to his shapeshifting roots.

Really liked the Signature space a lot--acoustics were perfect. And all tickets are $25--perfect price for an inconsistent show that I'm very glad to have seen.

Gary Cole is actually terrific in this.

My show's getting a bunch of great reviews. Tix may sell out soon.

http://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/an-interrogation-primer-at-the-NY-Fringe-Festival/

great stuff Eazy. well done!

i had a great time watching 3 Tom Murphy plays today.

http://www.druid.ie/productions/druidmurphy-the-plays-of-tom-murphy

I'll be dere Saturday, Eazy.

Great great--I'll be there.

seeing this tomorrow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCkwqmYIlDc

it lasts four and a half hours.

Eaz, just look after the show for a guy who has a cane or appears to need one. (hoping I can get there, today is a bitch)

The theater (unfortunately) is up two flights of stairs, in case that makes a difference.

Been a good run, both with audiences and press. Hope to do more with it.

holy shit that was 4 hours of absolutely incredible stagecraft. i have NEVER seen an entire audience give a standing ovation for a full ten minutes but that's what happened.

just found out i won free tickets to see theatre de la ville-paris's staging of ionesco's 'rinocerose' tomorrow night!

btw I really liked the play Eazy directed, and not just cuz 40 mins is about the longest I can sit these days.

Hey, thanks. Didn't think you made it, between the two flights and the cane, and very glad you did.

I get these Theatermania discount emails that encourage you to "Go beyond Broadway..."
The first two shows offered in today's are Cougar the Musical and The Butt-cracker Suite.

I must've asked about the Steppenwolf VaWoolf? revival before , yeah? And has anyone seen Mies Julie in Brooklyn?

This I'd like to see:
http://www.thewrap.com/culture/article/fiona-shaw-returning-broadway-colm-toibins-testament-mary-72086

Haven't heard anything bad about VaWoolf all these years. Never was in the right place at the right time to see it.

This is funny:
http://www.broadway.com/buzz/166904/whos-virginia-woolf-watch-tracy-letts-and-amy-morton-endure-five-awkward-tv-questions/

^Saw it yesterday.

The state of Broadway audiences is such that the douse-your-phones announcement was made BEFORE EACH OF THE THREE ACTS. George's Who's Afraid monologue about the coming death of civilization via technology fulfilled.

Glad to hear it's worththe time and ticket (just saw the Albee thread). Did it feel like a good version of the same play you'd seen before, or new/fresh?

well since I'd never seen the full text performed, given the film cuts, yes it did seem fresh. I'm pretty sure the Act III scene where Martha tells Nick that George is the only man who's ever satisfied her was not in the movie?

I'm gonna look for that 4 x LP of the first staging now, tho I won't play it today...

I don't think I could watch that Fox interview, anymore than a snuff film.

Othello at the NT last night. It's not a play I've ever been really attached or close to, but was totally blasted by this production; nightmarish sense of plot both moving like clockwork and getting horribly out control; production as a real play of soldiery works; Lester and Kinnear brilliant, Kinnear especially, Iago w/ a kind of James Corden matiness. Wasn't sure he could pull it off - plays nice too well - but yes.

Glad I managed to score some tickets then. Going to some Punchdrunk thing tonight: a "promenade performance", there will be "areas of darkness and confined space", "haze and strobe effects", and "audiences will wear a mask for the duration of the performance". Ulp.

Apparently the standard line on Punchdrunk is "nice spectacle, shame about the narrative" - I somewhat concur but as a first timer I thought the spectacle (of "The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable") was fantastic, easily half a dozen genuine moments of wonder or surprise. On the level of individual performances it's closer to modern dance than theatre and the choreography was breathtaking, as were the performers. Apparently some reviewers wandered around in the dark struggling to find any action, I think they must have been idiots as there was almost always something going somewhere, we probably caught less than half of the action over the four floor venue and I'm seriously considering going back, even at £40 a ticket.

Woof otm, Othello really was all that. One of the best things I've seen at the NT. First time I've seen it, hard to imagine it done better (would like to see it done differently for comparison). Modern setting worked brilliantly. No sense of strained credulity from Iago's villainy or Othello's falling for it. Unexpected and genuine humour, loved Rodrigo's buffoonish turn as well as Iago's more darkly comic moments, and an utterly devastating climax.

keen to see that. apparently chimerica, now at the pinter, is really good.

also recently enjoyed public enemy at young vic and the night alive at the donmar.

Oh yeah, A Season in the Congo at the Young Vic was fantastic too. Definitely one of the better years for theatre - in my highly limited and doubtless unrepresentative experience.

I must check that out before it ends.

I also liked The Silence Of The Sea at Trafalgar Studios earlier in the year.

I saw The Amen Corner at the NT a couple of weeks ago. Good performances & staging but the play itself wasn't amazing. Managed to find a £10 ticket for Chimerica in Sept (one of the midweek matinees)- high hopes for that.

yeah it is meant to be amazing.

my biggest disappointment this year was mission drift at the nt shed. a lot of teachers/classmates from diploma i did were all raving about it, only time i've ever left something at the interval.

Wow, that bad!

I've done that once. It was Fiona Shaw in a Brecht. It got amazing reviews. I felt like an uncultured pinhead. Still fucked off for a pint.

It was a musical (which normally I'd hate but my teacher whom I massively respect said it was one of the best things she'd ever seen.) I didn't like the music. I found the plot convoluted and pretentious. It was repetitive and noisy. The acting was fine, no problems there, but tonally it just killed me.

I was quite benevolently watching on thinking how bad it was and my friend whom I brought was sitting their with a look of disgust behind her fingers.

Was quite a funny interval with her all "I bet you loved it" and me replying that I fucking hated it. Then a good laugh in the bar ripping it to pieces once we'd both agreed to fuck off before coming back.

It got great reviews but when I later read the comments to find some fellow haters they were full of people, seemingly reasonable people, saying they'd left or if not, that they wished they had.

Apparently a lot of the shows had huge gaps after the interval, which is bad on anyone performing in it. But as I say it wasn't the performers' fault.

sitting there* - sorry, hurried post.

That does sound fucking awful.

"quite benevolently watching on thinking how bad it was" would be a good board description

I think the performers were the writers etc of mission drift unfortunately

though corny in parts I found it entertaining enough and occasionally it hit a fair stride but its ~high concept~ kinda weak

Yeah I think that's fair. The fact I saw the closed caption show didn't help as reading all the song lyrics made it worse!

anyone got any favourite monologues?

i'm kind of making some stuff like that in my v amateur way. so far been reading friel's the faith healer, conor mcpherson, mark o'rowe, interested to try some of the beckett stuff too.

A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away!

actually that one sucks tbh

inspirational.