Ghosts
Oct 4, 2013 11:07:14 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2013 11:07:14 GMT -5
Good evening to you all, once again! Due to unprecedented demand from around the world, everyone reading 'The Third' is cordially invited to the Almeida Theatre in Islington tonight promptly at 7:30pm (local time).
The Third - Calendar - Ghosts (19:30) - Friday 4 October 2013
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Almeida - Ghosts
Writing in 'The Daily Telegraph', Charles Spencer trudged to this production on Press Night yesterday with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy making his way to a double maths lesson on a dank Monday morning.
One of the peculiarities of Charles's job is that you are sometimes required to see the same play twice in close proximity, and it was only last week that Charles endured Stephen Unwin’s punishingly dour production of 'Ghosts' (1881) at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. The idea of a second dose of a work that is grim even by Ibsen’s demanding standards felt almost unendurable.
But Richard Eyre’s superb staging, in his own fleet and vivid adaptation, held Charles in its grip throughout. Unlike Unwin, he stages the piece without an interval, so that the dramatic tension isn’t dissipated, but the real difference is the in-the-moment intensity of the acting. Charles concludes thus:
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The Daily Telegraph - Ghosts, Almeida Theatre, review (5 stars out of 5)
Join us tonight!
The Third - Calendar - Ghosts (19:30) - Friday 4 October 2013
"Helene Alving has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband. She is determined to escape the ghosts of her past by telling her son, Oswald, the truth about his father. But on his return from his life as a painter in France, Oswald reveals how he has already inherited the legacy of Alving’s dissolute life."
Almeida - Ghosts
Writing in 'The Daily Telegraph', Charles Spencer trudged to this production on Press Night yesterday with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy making his way to a double maths lesson on a dank Monday morning.
One of the peculiarities of Charles's job is that you are sometimes required to see the same play twice in close proximity, and it was only last week that Charles endured Stephen Unwin’s punishingly dour production of 'Ghosts' (1881) at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. The idea of a second dose of a work that is grim even by Ibsen’s demanding standards felt almost unendurable.
But Richard Eyre’s superb staging, in his own fleet and vivid adaptation, held Charles in its grip throughout. Unlike Unwin, he stages the piece without an interval, so that the dramatic tension isn’t dissipated, but the real difference is the in-the-moment intensity of the acting. Charles concludes thus:
" ... The heart of the play though is the relationship between Lesley Manville as Mrs Alving and Jack Lowden as her ailing, anguished son. Manville presents the mother with an extraordinary sense of accumulated tension, capturing a woman who is haunted by bitter memories of the past and fearful of dreadful developments still to come. She also movingly reveals Mrs Alving’s courage in finally acknowledging that her own part in the family tragedy hasn’t been without blame.
Meanwhile Jack Lowden, big, shambolic and increasingly distraught as her bohemian artist son, conveys the ugly egotism of the chronically sick, and the sheer terror of his terrible illness. The play’s closing moments are almost too upsetting to watch.
Tim Hatley’s design, with translucent walls that make people in the adjoining room actually look like ghosts, and Peter Mumford’s often dramatic lighting, with the play ending in a blood-red dawn, both add greatly to the intensity of a production that does full justice to this thrilling, harrowing play."
Meanwhile Jack Lowden, big, shambolic and increasingly distraught as her bohemian artist son, conveys the ugly egotism of the chronically sick, and the sheer terror of his terrible illness. The play’s closing moments are almost too upsetting to watch.
Tim Hatley’s design, with translucent walls that make people in the adjoining room actually look like ghosts, and Peter Mumford’s often dramatic lighting, with the play ending in a blood-red dawn, both add greatly to the intensity of a production that does full justice to this thrilling, harrowing play."
The Daily Telegraph - Ghosts, Almeida Theatre, review (5 stars out of 5)
Join us tonight!