Theatre Review Time!
24/8/13 19:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amoama I just went to the theatre!
I saw The Pride with Hayley Atwell and Al Weaver. It was bloody glorious. It was set simultaneously in 1958 and The Now and the characters in both parts had the same names but were living slightly different lives. I think the suggestion being that the times they were living in were affecting who they were or could be. Obvs it was about two gay blokes. In the 1958 side Hayley's character, Sylvia is married to one - Philip - but introduces her husband to her author friend in an attempt to pinpoint the loneliness in all their lives. The two men start an affair but Philip's self-disgust leads it to end in tragedy and betrayal. In the modern times Sylvia is a friend to the semi-suicidal Oliver who's boyfriend, Philip, can't put up with Oliver's need to have anonymous sex sometimes - casually referred to as "the slut thing".
The staging was utterly fantastic, the way they slipped back and forth through time was inventive and served to highlight both sides so well. I really loved the impression that even though things had improved for Philip and Oliver in their second lives, the trauma of their past continued to haunt them and inform their behaviours and psychology.
Hayley was incandescent as the modern girl, gay's best friend who had to extricate herself from her friend's life in order to live her own. Al Weaver was phenomenal as Oliver in both settings, the 1950s author who thinks he's finally found a kindred spirit only to have the hope beaten out of him, and as the modern queer journalist trying to come to terms with who he is and keep his boyfriend around at the same time!
It was super funny, I always love a good joke referencing the Victoria line. I only had one qualm, which was that the play depicts a rape scene in the 1958 part (which was very well-staged and performed and the aftermath of which for the two characters it involved was really tortuously revealed) BUT at the very end of the play the Modern Philip tries to apologise to Oliver for something he doesn't quite know he's done, because he does not really understanding the past life thing, and Oliver tells him its okay. And I get that they're different people and in this modern part Philip hasn't raped Oliver and doesn't know why he feels he should be apologising but because We, the Audience, had seen it, and because they were the same actors with the same names with some mystical connection to the past it seemed a bit much to be asking for forgiveness in this vague non-culpable, but culpable way for that to be okay. IDK, I was a tad uncomfortable with it and would have preferred them not to suggest that modern!Oliver could somehow forgive past!Philip for what he did to past!Oliver.
The set was so good, it was like a massive rusty mirror and was a perfect reflection of the storyline and enhanced the telling in all sorts of ways. Did I mention Hayley was gorgeous and funny and sad and an excellent crier! She had all the tears, even when she had her hand in front of her eyes I could still see tears falling from her face! She was perfection.
Have some pictures!
Descrip: Matthew Horne as the Role-Playing Nazi-for-Hire and Al Weaver as Oliver, who thought that was a good idea.
Descrip: Hayley Atwell with the To Russia With Love placard the cast carried at curtain call.
I saw The Pride with Hayley Atwell and Al Weaver. It was bloody glorious. It was set simultaneously in 1958 and The Now and the characters in both parts had the same names but were living slightly different lives. I think the suggestion being that the times they were living in were affecting who they were or could be. Obvs it was about two gay blokes. In the 1958 side Hayley's character, Sylvia is married to one - Philip - but introduces her husband to her author friend in an attempt to pinpoint the loneliness in all their lives. The two men start an affair but Philip's self-disgust leads it to end in tragedy and betrayal. In the modern times Sylvia is a friend to the semi-suicidal Oliver who's boyfriend, Philip, can't put up with Oliver's need to have anonymous sex sometimes - casually referred to as "the slut thing".
The staging was utterly fantastic, the way they slipped back and forth through time was inventive and served to highlight both sides so well. I really loved the impression that even though things had improved for Philip and Oliver in their second lives, the trauma of their past continued to haunt them and inform their behaviours and psychology.
Hayley was incandescent as the modern girl, gay's best friend who had to extricate herself from her friend's life in order to live her own. Al Weaver was phenomenal as Oliver in both settings, the 1950s author who thinks he's finally found a kindred spirit only to have the hope beaten out of him, and as the modern queer journalist trying to come to terms with who he is and keep his boyfriend around at the same time!
It was super funny, I always love a good joke referencing the Victoria line. I only had one qualm, which was that the play depicts a rape scene in the 1958 part (which was very well-staged and performed and the aftermath of which for the two characters it involved was really tortuously revealed) BUT at the very end of the play the Modern Philip tries to apologise to Oliver for something he doesn't quite know he's done, because he does not really understanding the past life thing, and Oliver tells him its okay. And I get that they're different people and in this modern part Philip hasn't raped Oliver and doesn't know why he feels he should be apologising but because We, the Audience, had seen it, and because they were the same actors with the same names with some mystical connection to the past it seemed a bit much to be asking for forgiveness in this vague non-culpable, but culpable way for that to be okay. IDK, I was a tad uncomfortable with it and would have preferred them not to suggest that modern!Oliver could somehow forgive past!Philip for what he did to past!Oliver.
The set was so good, it was like a massive rusty mirror and was a perfect reflection of the storyline and enhanced the telling in all sorts of ways. Did I mention Hayley was gorgeous and funny and sad and an excellent crier! She had all the tears, even when she had her hand in front of her eyes I could still see tears falling from her face! She was perfection.
Have some pictures!
Descrip: Matthew Horne as the Role-Playing Nazi-for-Hire and Al Weaver as Oliver, who thought that was a good idea.
Descrip: Hayley Atwell with the To Russia With Love placard the cast carried at curtain call.
(no subject)
28/8/13 21:36 (UTC)But then went reeling back from the screen because Jesus Christ, forty quid.
(no subject)
28/8/13 22:29 (UTC)ALSO YAY YOU ARE INTERNETING AGAIN!
(no subject)
18/10/13 08:40 (UTC)