Theatre Blog: The plays I want to see (Fall 2017 - Spring 2018) - National Theatre Live

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So far, this year has been absolutely great on all National Theatre Live broadcasts. There were a lot of plays that I loved and would happily watch more than once. I know that I am a bit behind on reviews here, but since I found information about upcoming broadcasts at Cineplex website, I just had to share!

Yerma - National Theatre Live

September 21, 2017 | 2h 00m

GENRE: Drama, Stage

DIRECTOR: Simon Stone (Director), Federico García Lorca (Playwright)

CAST: Billie Piper

SYNOPSIS

The incredible Billie Piper (Penny Dreadful, Great Britain) returns in her award-winning role. A young woman is driven to the unthinkable by her desperate desire to have a child in Simon Stone’s radical production of Lorca’s achingly powerful masterpiece. The unmissable theatre phenomenon sold out at the Young Vic and critics call it ‘an extraordinary theatrical triumph’ (The Times) and ‘stunning, searing, unmissable’ (Mail on Sunday). Billie Piper’s lead performance is described as ‘spellbinding’ (The Evening Standard), ‘astonishing’ (iNews) and ‘devastatingly powerful’ (The Daily Telegraph). Set in contemporary London, Piper’s portrayal of a woman in her thirties desperate to conceive builds with elemental force to a staggering, shocking, climax. Please note that this broadcast does not have an interval.

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My comments: I have already purchased the ticket for this broadcast. I am very excited to see Billie Piper on stage, whom I really liked in Doctor Who. And this time I swear, I will read the play before watching it.

 

Follies - National Theatre Live

November 16, 2017 | 3h 30m

GENRE: Musical, Stage

DIRECTOR: Dominic Cooke

CAST: Imelda Staunton, Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee

SYNOPSIS:

Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical is staged for the first time at the National Theatre and broadcast live to cinemas. New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves. Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton play the magnificent Follies in this dazzling new production. Featuring a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, it’s directed by Dominic Cooke (The Comedy of Errors). Winner of Academy, Tony, Grammy and Olivier awards, Sondheim’s previous work includes A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George.

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My comments: I am not familiar with this story but I am excited to see Imelda Staunton on stage again. After watching “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (read my review here), I developed a new level of appreciation for Imelda. She was terrific in that play, so I can’t wait to see this production.

 

Young Marx - National Theatre Live

December 7, 2017 | 3h 40m

GENRE: Comedy, Stage

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Hytner

CAST: Rory Kinnear, Oliver Chris

SYNOPSIS:

Rory Kinnear (The Threepenny Opera, Penny Dreadful, Othello) is Marx and Oliver Chris (Twelfth Night, Green Wing) is Engels, in this new comedy written by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman. Broadcast live from The Bridge Theatre, London, the production is directed by Nicholas Hytner and reunites the creative team behind Broadway and West End hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors. 1850, and Europe’s most feared terrorist is hiding in Dean Street, Soho. Broke, restless and horny, the thirty-two-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit, and child-like emotional illiteracy. Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, his only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the piss than Karl Heinrich Marx.

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My comments: Can’t say I am very interested in the story of Karl Marx, but Rory Kinnear is a terrific actor. I have seen him in The Threepenny Opera and Othello (both by NT) and I know that this is going to be a great play!

 

Hamlet - National Theatre Live ENCORE

March 1, 2018 | 3h 25m

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My comments: Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch - what more can I say? I have seen it twice already but will watch it again, and again, and again.

 

 

 

 

Julius Caesar - National Theatre Live

March 22, 2018 | 3h 00m

GENRE: Stage

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Hytner

CAST: Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, David Calder, David Morrissey

SYNOPSIS:

Ben Whishaw (The Danish Girl, Skyfall, Hamlet) and Michelle Fairley (Fortitude, Game of Thrones) play Brutus and Cassius, David Calder (The Lost City of Z, The Hatton Garden Job) plays Caesar and David Morrissey (The Missing, Hangmen, The Walking Dead) is Mark Antony. Broadcast live from The Bridge Theatre, London. Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital. Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.

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My comments: Ben Whishaw on stage. What else do you need? I fell in love with Ben as Freddie Lyon in the British TV series ‘The Hour’. I believe, it will be the first time I see him on stage, and I can not wait!

 

 

This is all that has been announced for the broadcast in foreseeable future. As always, keep an eye on Cineplex and NTLive.com websites for more information. (And, no, I have no affiliation with either companies - I am just an avid theatre goer ♥).

Check out my play reviews here.

Play Review: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - National Theatre Live

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Raise a hand if you can pronounce the title of this play, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, in one go without twisting your tongue - because I can’t! So, I am going to refer to it from now it as ‘RaG’ in my review, because even typing it in full is a hassle.

I heard about this play for the first time at my very first job, where we had the movie with same title available at the library. It was released in 1990 and had two of my (now) favourite actors - Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. I never had a chance to rent this movie and for years ‘RaG’ in my head was labelled as ‘that one movie I never got to watch’. I knew that it was somehow linked to Shakespeare, but only later I learned that it was originally a play by Tom Stoppard and not a movie (the movie had Stoppard as both director and writer). When National Theatre announced this play in honour of the play’s 50th anniversary and casted Joshua McGuire and Daniel Radcliffe (the latter I had been dying to see on stage), I was ready to buy tickets on spot. I believe that the fact that ex Harry Potter was on stage had to do something with the younger than usual audience at the broadcast - which is great as I would love to more younger people go to theatre. I watched this play on April 20, and if I could, I would watch it again.

 

As per usual, I set my mind on reading the play before watching it on stage, but I didn’t have time to finish it. And I am glad it happened this way as I think it is easy to get lost in the absurdist nature of the dialogues and miss the point, while watching it on stage added a different layer of meaning.

 

If you don’t know what this play is about but you feel that it is vaguely familiar, well, you are not alone. Tom Stoppard took two secondary characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and wrote an absurdist, existentialist tragicomedy that portrays those two inseparable friends as confused and unwilling participants in the events of Hamlet. There are bits of dialogues and actual scenes from Hamlet, but they are used to only enhance the absurdity of everything that is happening. R and G are confused by their existence, by the world’s existence, by everything that is happening, including Hamlet’s depression and obsession with his father’s death. They futilely try to find the meaning in everything, but eventually, even when they discover that the letter with death sentence that they carry has their names, they still follow the appointed road to the end.

 

The play is funny, absurd, existential, and thought provoking. It is a meta within a meta, and theatrical bits and scenes serve as the commentary and parody on Hamlet. Both Joshua McGuire and Daniel Radcliffe do an amazing job as two confused fellows, who try and fail to make sense of things. They talk about life and death, and probability. The play has too many layers to take in just in one viewing. That is why I hope I would get a chance to see it on stage again, as I feel in no way qualified to talk about the play indepth.

 

The play was introduced by a short movie, as usual, with both actors talking about the play and stage. The Old Vic’s stage was transformed and sort of elongated to bring it closer to the audience. The play originally premiered in the same theatre 50 years ago, which made it an incredible experience for both the actors and the audience to experience it again on the same stage.

 

Highly recommend to English majors, Shakespeare lovers as well as fans of theatre!

 

Personal rating: 4 stars

 

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