Richard II - Shakespeare's Globe

Richard II is the next play I am looking forward to seeing in HD Live.

It runs Wednesday, October 26, 2016 in our city.

I can't find any reviews so I am going to have to use other ways to learn about this play which I have never seen.  I wish I lived at Rebecca's for I know that she would have aids for watching posted up on her walls.

One of them would be 10 Memorable Lines from Richard II.  I guess I can do that myself.  So here they are from the Royal Shakespeare Company's Favourite Quotes site.  I am not familiar with one of them:

Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed:
Our doctors say this is no time to bleed.
(King Richard, Act 1 Scene 1)

We were not born to sue, but to command.
(King Richard, Act 1 Scene 1)

King Richard: Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt: But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
(Act 1 Scene 3)

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)

Landlord of England art thou and not king.
(Gaunt, Act 2 Scene 1)
(King Richard, Act 2 Scene 1)

Come, lords, away.
To fight with Glendower and his complices;
A while to work and after holiday.
(Bullingbrook, Act 3 Scene 1)

Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
(King Richard, Act 3 Scene 2)

For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
(King Richard, Act 3 Scene 2)

See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
From out the fiery portal of the east.
(Bullingbrook, Act 3 Scene 3)

What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The King shall do it.
(Richard, Act 3 Scene 3)

Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee
From plume-plucked Richard, who with willing soul
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
To the possession of thy royal hand.
(York, Act 4 Scene 1)

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown.
(Richard, Act 4 Scene 1)

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face.
(Bullingbrook, Act 4 Scene 1)

Doubly divorced? Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage, 'twixt my crown and me
And then betwixt me and my married wife.
(King Richard, Act 5 Scene 1)

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
(King Richard, Act 5 Scene 5)

For now the devil that told me I did well
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
This dead king to the living king I'll bear. –
Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.
(Exton, Act 5 Scene 5)

Though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murd’rer, love him murdered.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 6)

I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 6)

HD Live Measure for Measure

Mariah Gale as Isabella and 
Kurt Egyiawan as Angelo in 
Measure for Measure at Shakespeare's Globe 
Photo: Marc Brenner

Measure for Measure is playing HD Live tomorrow.

Here is the review from The Telegraph by Dominic Cavendish. I trust in my reviewers to give me the flavour of what I will see.

I am due for a brush up on the characters and the plots, though I do remember seeing this show performed when I was a teen-ager.  It was done in our local chapel and I was pretty well amazed by it.  The next time I see Johnny Wilcox I will ask him if he was one of the actors.

In Susannah Clapp's review she says "order may have been restored, but happiness has been banished.

We shall see.

Here are famous quotes to look for:

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." (Act I, Scene IV) 

"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." (Act II, Scene I) 

"Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?" (Act II, Scene II) 

"O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant." (Act II, Scene II) 

"The miserable have no other medicine but only hope." (Act III, Scene I) 

"If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee." (Act III, Scene I) 

"Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful." (Act III, Scene I) 

"O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side!" (Act III, Scene II) 

"Truth is truth To the end of reckoning." (Act V, Scene I) 

"What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine." (Act V, Scene I) 

"Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure." (Act V, Scene I)

I had to take a quick peek to see what the title means.  So here it is for you, Duncan and Alex: What's Up with the Title.

Arta

The Hard Problem

The Hard Problem

Having just barely recovered from the hard work of seeing Shakespeare's King John, I am doing my homework for the next NT Live performance.

What will be broadcast is Tom Stoppard's play, The Hard Problem.

Below are some reviews for the curious:

Intelligent design: Olivia Vinall as Hilary in ‘The Hard Problem’

Michael Billington's Review in the Guardian.

Susannah Clapp's Review in the the Guardian.

I like Camilla Turner's interview with Tom Stoppard, published in The Telegraph.  A tidge insulting that jokes have to be dumbed down for me ... but why not dumb them down and let me get them.  I like that part.

The Lloyd Evan's review is my absolute favourite in The Spectator.

Arta

Reviews of A View from the Bridge

 Increasingly intense …
Mark Strong, centre, 
in A View from the Bridge
 at Wyndham’s theatre.
 Photograph: Tristram Kenton

I have been waiting for this National Theatre Production.

Probably I wait for them all.

Thursday, though, is Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge.

I am exhausted after reading the reviews.

Sometimes I think, can I take another moment of darkness.

However, I think, better to be in the middle of the darkness of a fiction than the darkness of trouble in real life.

So of course, I am going to move heaven and earth to see that I get to this viewing.  I always remember Rebecca saying that she visited a friend who lives in London.  She was surprised that both she and her friend had seen the same sets of plays -- the woman in London had tickets to the theatre, and Rebecca saw them in Victoria through HD Live.

So ...

Some reviews for you.

Here is a Lyn Gardner's five star Review from the Guardian.

Michael Billington writes a review a couple of months later, also in the Guardian.

I might have to brush up on the elements of Greek tragedy before I go on Thursday.

Arta

Skylight

Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan in David Hare's Skylight.
Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Observer

Tonia and I caught Stephen Dauldry’s production of David Hare’s Skylight tonight. It is a thrill to have the theatre darken and then a play begin onscreen.

Tonia laughs at the intermission and then says, “I know it is irrational, but I feel that we should be able to go into the lobby and buy a ”three pound Dixie cup of ice-cream. This whole experience feels so “London”.

I had to have Tonia remind me about the significance of the title at the intermission.  When she told me, yes, I could remember that piece of dialogue, but there was so much going on that I hadn't caught the significance of the window to the outside built for the dying Alice.

I was surprised at the simplicity of the set and at the minimalist costuming. As the credits rolled by at the end, I noticed that ties that Bill Nighy wore were even given a nod.  There wasn't much to be said about Mulligan's costuming.  Even I can pull a pair of old jeans and a baggy t-shirt out of my closet.

To get to the heart of the show, the dialogue moved so quickly and was full of amazing intensity, all of that done in a drab London flat. I watched Carey Mulligan making that marinara pasta sauce as she delivered her lines and when she put the spaghetti in the colander to drain, I leaned over to Tonia and said, “I hope I can find some pasta to eat at the intermission. She has been making that look really good, even if she is putting the chilis in at the wrong time.”

I would love to see the show again – having the whole plot book-ended with the dialogue between Mulligan and the son was just the best touch. And the interview between Emma Freud and David Hare at the intermission was so natural and illuminating. Three cheers for shows from the West End – so easy to access with the HD Live transmissions, and the price so gentle on the pocket book.

Arta

A Street Car Named Desire

Gillian Anderson as Blanche DuBois

Kelvin and I were only a few scenes into the HD Live performance of  Tennesse Williams' "A Street Car Named Desire", broadcast from London, when we both knew we were out of our depth.

Neither of us have read the play, or seen it.

I probably thought I was going to see "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" though I don't know how I could have  mistaken.  Well, I do know.  I just didn't so my homework and look at the synopsis for the plot, at the very least.

I had  read the review in The Guardian and had seen a u-tube clip of the actual play -- the scene where the audience can see three events going on simultaneously:  men playing cards; Blanche getting acquainted with a possible lover; Stella, in the bathroom, brushing her teeth.

Kelvin's comment at the end of the play was about the multi-taking that it required, since the play was done theatre-in-the-round.  At any time, you could see through the set to the audience on the other side.  The set was angular and spare.  It would turn as the acting was going on, so the audience could see the action from different points of view. The interlude film at the intermission explained that having the audience in the round keeps all of us aware, all of the time, that we are collectively watching this play.  That is a lot of work to add onto three things happening on the stage ... and going to the play unprepared.

Now that was the worst for me.  Not knowing how the play would end.  And when it did Kelvin wanted to know which play I had liked best:  Medea or A Street Car Named Desire.  I know there is a good essay to be written there, but not at this time of night.

Sufficient to say here -- stunning.  The images will be with me for a long time.

Arta

What to See and When: a Medea Reprise

I am still struggling with the life-long question about timing … when is it the right time to introduce children to certain forms of art. And probably, more important, the question should be about when to introduce them to certain themes in art. The question emerged again when I was going to see Medea. 

I was remembering that Catherine took her kids to see Hansel and Gretel opera and that someone in the audience chastised her at the intermission. The theme was too dark they thought. And perhaps it was, for the setting had been changed to a Germany during WW II, something Catherine probably hadn’t been aware of.

So? While I was going to the performance of Medea by myself, I had been thinking, what if Doral and Anita’s kids were still here? Which of them would I want to take?  The answer is probably, ... all.  And what would I say to prepare them? Would my reading of the reviews have been enough?

So when Rebecca said she had seen the performance, … I was glad to have someone to bounce these ideas off of. Rebecca, did you take your kids? Or did you get your friend, Stacey, to go along? Or … were you solo?

When the show was over, when the last credits had rolled by, and when most of the patrons had left the theatre, Kelvin turned to me and said, "I can't move."

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

I was just messing with him. Taking me on the literal level and fearing that I might act on that information he slowly rose to his feet and reached for his walker. But I knew what he meant.

That had been one of those shows, after which I think, “This might have been the best piece of theatre I have seen in my whole life.  Stunning in every detail.”

First of all, to be specific, I was interested in how the director would address that question above – the one of warning the audience that the theme was dark and difficult.

 The answer was in the text, in the initial warning by the nurse that what we were about to see was not for the faint-hearted and that we should leave right now if knowing that in the end, Medea was going to kill her two children was going to overwhelm us.

And then the play began – a play within a play. Nice.  And then the wrap up, the same way.

And the question of how to make an ancient Greek play relevant?

 So quickly done by having the setting updated, even to the point of having us watch the children who were watching T.V., or at one point, the  children so busy with their own electronic devices that they were oblivious to the dynamics going on between their parents.

I liked the touch of introducing Medea to us by having her perform one of the daily rituals we do unconsciously. I never think about that act as leveling us all in one way. She was brushing her teeth. In the mythology, I think she is the granddaughter of the sun god. But here … she was one of us … could have been any of us.

I am not good with an analysis of dance. But I was taken with the wedding dance between Jason and his princess-wife – struck by its angularity, its rhythmic pulse, its awkward form. And on that note, having it performed on the second level of the set, on the level we usually saw only through a curtain, but now it was visible and real to us.

Ah … what more is there to say. Probably a lot more. But let this be enough and I will meet you at one of the next Front Row Centre events.

In fact, now that I think about it, The Last Night of the Proms is next Saturday.

 If I get there, it will be the first time I have tried that event.

Arta

Things to do in New York

While email chatting with Mary today, she asked who had been to New York and what were the best things to do there.  I am quick with an answer if the question is about London, but I have only been to La Guardia, which I can't even really spell.  I am no good at answering questions about New York.

However the question of what to do and where to do it has been on my mind all day -- and even more so tonight having come home from the theatre with the list of next year's "Coming Up" productions for National Theatre Live:

A Streeetcar Named Desire by Tennesse Williams - Sept 16
Skylight by David Hare - Oct 23
Frankenstein, based on Mary Shelley's novel
John - Lloyd Newson - Dec 9

I grabbed The Met Live in HD from the teller at the movie house as well.

MacBeth - Oct 11
La NOzza Di Figaro - Oct 18
Carmen - Nov 1
The Barber of Seville - Nov 22
Die Meistersinger - Dec 13
The Merry Widow - Jan 17, 2015
The Tales of Hoffman - Jan 31
Iolanta / Bluebeard's Castle - Feb 14
La Donna Del Lago - March 14
Pagliacci / Cavalleria Rusticana - Apri 25

I asked for the Dance Series schedule since I was at the wicket anyway.  They didn't have it in take home form at the theatre, but it was on a big poster in the hall, and I had to pause in my walk up and down the halls before the movie started ... to take a look.  Through my mind was going this voice, "You don't really like dance.  You go to dance productions and sleep half the tine.  You have spent a life-time and don't have the tools to appreciate dance.  You might want to go anyway, since part of the good life is doing something new all of the time.  Don't discount this series, Arta."

And then what about the one-of productions.  I think the Night of the Proms is next Saturday -- the 13th.  I have never gone.  I think I will make this one my first.  And there was an intro to another one-of production -- a man reading from a book.  He was so funny in the ad that I was laughing out loud, and then embarrassed that the only laughter in the theatre was coming from me.  I just don't need a warm-up act.  When something is funny, I get it right away.

Well, back to "things to do in New York".  I don't know what Mary is going to do there, but I am sure I am going to have a good life this fall and winter -- dance, theatre, opera -- all at a movie theatre in my neighbourhood

Yes.  The good life coming to me, though not in New York.

Arta

First silence, then darkness

First silence; then darkness.  Those were the last words of the play tonight.

And what was the audience left with?

Silence.  Darkness.

And a tightening of the throat, the oesophagus, everything down to what felt like the stomach for me. A gripping presentation -- much better to watch on stage than in real life, I am sure.

As the play gathered itself into its close, I was thoughtful about the play within the play -- the children's nurse inviting us to take a look at the day's events to begin with, and then circling back to close the curtain on what we had seen while she let us make up our minds about what we thought about the events we had witnessed.

Reading the reviews.  Going out to see u-tube clips.  None of that really prepared me for the McCrory performance.  Thoughtful.  Intense.  The stain of tears on her face.  The weight of the body bags.  The clutching to her body of what she had lost.  That is one of the benefits of seeing the play HD-Live.  I get to see both the proscenium arch and I get the effect of those telling close-ups.  Those long pauses where we get to linger on the face in silence.

Did anyone else like the Greek chorus?  Stilted, yet flexible.  The costuming -- everywoman.  I kept looking for the voices. Or at least who the voices were coming from. Only a few times could I see who was speaking.

I liked the abstractness of the body movements in the chorus, as well as those of Kreusa, the new bridge.

And oh, the original music.  At one point didn't the instruments sound like a freight train coming to a sudden screeching halt.  Or have I been out to the lake too long.

I don't know if the laughter was from the theatre audience, or from the people who were in the movie house.  When Jason's sons were glued to their electronic devices, the laughter might have come from both places.

Would I go again?  Oh yes.  And on that point, more in the next post.

Arta

Medea

Helen McCorory as Medea

Hello,

In an attempt to prepare myself for the performance of Medea by Euripedes, I went out to read the review of the play in The Guardian.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to the National Theatre Lives website and read a bit around the play -- watched a tube video about the Medea myth and how it has evolved over the years.

The play is tomorrow night in our community (Sept 4).  I noticed that the play ends on Sept 4 in London, which must be why it is also broadcast worldwide on that date.

Rebecca usually takes her kids along.  This play could probably be classified as a cautionary tale for them.  They usually get money for answering questions.  Duncan should just get money for going to the theatre on this one.  I guess, at the very least, it is a chance to teach him about the Greek chorus and its purpose.

Arta

PS
Here is Helen McCorory on playing Medea.

And here is Director Carrie Cracknell on Medea.

Or try Michael Billinggate's review if you want an idea of what the set looks like.

One last review by Ian Shuttleworth.

War Horse - TED Talks

Photo: National Theatre of Great Britain Website

I am off to see Warhorse again today.

Last night I  watched this wonderful 18 minute video about how the horse puppets were made.

If you have a chance, look at a few minutes of it to get a flavour of the incredible mechanism behind the puppet. The clip will show you how the horse is made, why it takes three puppeteers to have the horse move and will tell you how the whinnying sound of the horse is created by those puppeteers.

Here is the link. 

Thank you TED Talks.

If you make your way through that one, then this one takes you right to the factory where the horses are made.  A little slower video.  I loved seeing the hand mechanisms up close that control the movement.

Arta

Opera, Theatre, Dance, Gallery

Here are the good November events, all in HD Live.  I hope some of them will be playing in your city.

Arta

The Met Live in HD.
Tosca

Puccini’s timeless verismo score is well served with an exceptional cast. Patricia Racette as Tosca, opposite Tenor Roberto Alagna. George Gagnidze is the villainous Scarpia.

Saturday November 9,2013 at 10:55am

Dance Series.
Nederlands Dans Theater.

An Evening With Crystal Pite

Fascinated by themes such as love, conflict and loss, Crystal Pite has a keen interest in the way the body is able to render these themes. The choreographer, who is renowned for her organic, poetic style, describes Parade and Frontier as two completely different worlds, which are connected by a few similar motives and characters.

Sunday November 17,2013 at 12:55pm

Royal Shakespeare Company Live.

Richard II

Richard II is the first production to be broadcast live from Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's home town. This performance is the first ever live cinema broadcast from the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company with the sellout production of Richard II (the fastest selling show in the RSC's history), with David Tennant in the title role and directed by RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran. Wednesday November 13,2013 at 7:00pm

EXHIBITION: Great art on screen

Vermeer and Music

The National Gallery, London, is offering a major exhibition on one of the most startling and fascinating artists of all-time Johannes Vermeer, painter of the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Vermeer painted little more than 30 works that still exist, and the National Gallery has chosen to focus on his art in relation to music. Music was one of the most popular themes of Dutch painting and revealed an enormous amount about the sitter and the society.

Saturday November 23,2013 at 4:00pm

Merrily We Roll Along - HD Live

Hello "musical lovers",

Here is a once in a lifetime event:

Steven Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along

Year Released: 2013

Release Date:  November 7, 2013

Running Time: 2h40m

Genre: Musical

Cast:  Damian Humbley, Jenna Russell, Mark Umbers

Synopsis

Set over three decades in the entertainment business Merrily We Roll Along charts the relationship between three friends Franklin, Mary and Charley. Travelling backwards in time, this powerful and moving story features some of Stephen Sondheim’s most beautiful songs including ‘Good Thing Going’, ‘Not a Day Goes By’ and ‘Old Friends’. 

Mary and Leo? I have checked it out for you, It is on at Silvercity in Ottawa.  Look for your local time and the exactly spot.  One day only.  Though a different genre, I think it is going to rival the recent MacBeth you saw in HD Live.

To all -- if you are a reader of this blog and the parents of my grandchildren, I command you to take your kids to this show.  The more children you have, the more it is going to cost you.  On the other hand, if you have ever wished to take your kids to London and see  musical theatre there -- for your money, this evening will give you the same bang

Arta

Check out Lyn Gardener's Guardian Review 

Check out Ian Shuttleworth's review.

Othello Again

I woke up thinking about Othello. Some of my second language friends went to see Coriolanus. It was a bust. They didn’t understand one word. I thought of their reaction to Coriolanus when the Othello started last night. I was asking the question, “Have I wasted my time coming. I am having to work so hard with the Old English grammar and with the English accent. I might not get much out of this play.” I coached myself to stay with it, saying, remember, keep working at it, it will get easier, don’t give up, use your brain, make it work hard. By the end of the play, I wasn’t noticing how hard the work was. How hard the language and accent were didn’t matter, because inside, I was writhing in pain in the scene where Othello kills Desdamona.

 I was using controlled breathing to stay calm and thinking ... how did the director, Nicholas Hytner do this? How did he bring the play's themes right up in the present, making me think of other crimes of passion. The simplicity of the set helped – this could be anywhere, anytime. The moves of the actors, which I knew were carefully choreographed, were realistic – so much was being said with the physicality of the moves that brought death. I was trying to stay focused on what I was seeing, at the same time trying to detach myself from the horror.

Why did I go to the show at all?  I am saying now as I said to myself last night, that is why I like the theatre. It gives me a chance to see myself and the broader culture that I live in.  To see it captured on the stage so that I can have the distance that being in the audience gives.  For me, I know I am engaging in the broader cultures concern over this problem.  And with Shakespeare, I am also thinking -- 400 years and still this is a central problem in some people's life.

John Everett Millais's "Ophelia"

Rebecca will want to know that the Willow, Willow song was lovely. Plaintive. Reminiscent of other images: Ophelia singing her mad song and then floating down the stream, dead, a lily on her breast-- no wonder that Desdamona death scene was excrutiatingly painful.  It carries with it a lot of other cultural allusions.

I was remembering that Rebecca sang the Willow Song when she acted in The Trojan Women. This morning Bonnie sang the song to me on the phone – unsolicited, it just leaped out of her vocal chords when I said I had seen Othello last night. She said, “Of course I know that song. How could a person take so many speech lessons and not be able to sing it.” That answered my question as to how she knew the song.

I will be processing the the National Theatre Live's Othello for a long time. Maybe find the play and read that last scene again. Perhaps I  will go back and take a look at this production when it comes again for its Encore. I hope I am near a theatre where I will be able to do that. One viewing was not enough.

Arta

Othello - the reviewers were right

First performance by the King’s Men at the court of James I in November 1604.

Olivia Vinall as Desdemona, Adrian Lester as Othello
at the National Theatre
Photo: Alastair Muir

Four hundred years later and I can go to one of Shakespeare’s plays and feel the themes are current.

The Guardian and Telegraph reviewers were right. Brilliant setting. The staging in the concrete bunkers – chilling.

Adrian Lester was a larger than life, Othello. Rory Kinnear played the kind of Iago that let the audience know how hateful and dangerous he was.

Nicholas Hytner, the director, gave a pre-performance interview with Emma Freud. I will know him anywhere. Soft spoken voice, his eyelids, like perfect round awnings – how theatrical is that!

 Kate Waters, the fight director was interviewed after the 15 minute break. The fight scene had the woman next to me, an old English Teacher colleague of Kelvins, laughing. And the beer-drinking party was also typical. Lots of dares over alcohol.

I was glad to see the half time interview with the clips showing us how fight-director could get so many men into such a small space and have them choreographed so that they could appear to be having such a big fight. Her head-butting demo made me think I didn’t want to meet her in a dark alley.

The military director, Jonathan Shaw, pointed out that Rory Kinnear’s refusal to follow rules about dressing in correct military clothing was consistent with Iago’s character – military people who see the show comment that it is too bad he didn’t have on the correct uniform, which the military director concedes and then says, “That is the point – he is Iago.”

Kelvin’s favorite part of the show: the overall acting, especially the beginnings of Iago’s manipulations of Othello into a jealous rage. That was a breathtaking scene. He adds that the changing of sets was so smoothly done – seamless. A pleasure to watch.

Arta’s favourite part of the show: Emilia and Desdemona in the final act of the play – especially loved the ripping off of the old bedsheets and putting on Desdemona’s marriage sheets.

Gloria Dalton’s (Kelvin’s colleague) favorite part of the show? At the half she said, I have taught this play so many times to Grade XII English classes. Today the declamation of the lines made sense for me of sentences I have sometimes worried about.

What is next?

MacBeth: Oct 17, October 19, 23
Coriolanus: January 30, February 22
National Theatre 50 Years on Stage: November 2
War Horse: 2014
Frankenstein: both versions will be broadcast
Richard II: November 13

Also coming:
Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along from London's West End: November 7.  I have read the Guardian's review on this show.  Looks like a show not to be missed.    So nice to know we can see it in a local theatre.  Beats the cost of flying to London to see it.

Arta

Othello

Tonight we get to see Othello, 7 pm.

$22 for Seniors at the Crowfoot Cineplex, General Seating.

The show runs for 3 hours, 38 minutes. There is an Encore showing, October 12th at select theatres only.

 If you can't get to see the show, you will feel a bit as though you have been by scanning one of the three reviews below. 

• The Telegraph  - Charles Spencer
• The Observer - Michael Billington  
• The Observer - Susannah Clapp

Happy theatre going, if you can join us via a theatre close to you.

Arta  

More on Becoming Traviata

 ...  soprano Dessay and director Sevadier in rehearsal ...

Kelvin and I had the whole Cineplex Theatre to ourselves today at the 12:55 pm.

That is the moment when the documentary about a new production of La Traviata began.

Within five minutes two separate parties of one person each joined us in the movie house – and that was it for the audience.

The price was right: $9.50.

The Los Angeles Times prints an interview with Natalie Dessay about the two month filming of the rehearsals. I knew I was hooked into the movie at the first few shots – a chandelier swinging outside in the wind; some leaves now magnified because they were along the left side of the screen, the seat at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché in Aix en Provence; the stage tools, brushes and brooms, hanging on a wall. I watched the rehearsal of the chorus; saw the director Jean-Francois Sivadier working with Natalie Dessay, giving her ideas of how to block her stage moves. Louis Langree was fine tuning the London Symphony Orchestra. He said of one pianissimo – it must be a forte-pianissimo. Quiet but intense – forte in its quietude, passionate in emotion. Then when they got it right we could feel the thrill of those eight bars as we had never felt them before.

The filming crew shot 100 hours of film. The editors of the film cut the footage back to less than two hours. The plot line was maintained – the film begins as the curtain goes up and the last shot was of Dessay practising her final collapse on stage – over and over – Dessay goes down at the same instant as the conductor brings down his baton and the curtain falls. The three of them in tandem: the orchestra, Dessay and the curtain. Over and over she practised in front of our eyes, a multi-part fall: knees, hips, then shoulders, the final notes of the music in the background. I knew the film had to end but I wanted it to go on and on.

We saw the tutoring over and over as Sivadier coached her during a phrase where she imagined her lover was present. Sivadier was giving her ideas on how to trace out the form of her lover’s body for the audience, how to cup his imaginary face in her hands, how to show us the left side of his body, then the right.

In 10 words or less, Kelvin calls our day a lesson in “how to listen and watch at the opera”. A wonderful Saturday.

Arta

A Disappearing Number

Hello,

Take a chance and join HD Live at a Theatre near you on Thursday night. You will see the National Theatre's performance of a live play called "A Disappearing Number". The play has deepened, the reviews say, since it first came to the stage in 2007.

See what the Guardian has to say about the event.

Looks like a treasure not to be missed.

Arta