Dear Evan Hansen in London: Hot Damn I Love this Showby Randi / December 12, 2019Man alive, if you didn’t hate England after last week’s election, you definitely will after seeing Translations, the classic play by Brian Friel that is basically the stage version of the quote “You be careful out among them English.” (The actual quote is ‘the English’ but most people remember it as ‘them English’ because it’s so much better.) Translations tells of the folk who run and attend a hedge school in the Irish community of Baile Beag in 1833. They seem to be having a grand old time learning and living their lives, until the English military comes in supposedly to map their area and record the right translations of the farm-county names. But you can’t trust the English, as they come to know, and as the ‘translations’ become ‘renaming’ their locales, and as ‘renaming’ becomes, well, executing English military control. With well realized characters and a captivating style and story, Translations is a fantastic show and this revival could not be better.
So, your first question first: a hedge school (according to our friend wikipedia because I never heard the term before) was a small informal (and I guess illegal?) school that secretly educated kids from ‘non-conforming faiths’ (catholic and presby/anything but Anglican). They generally provided rudimentary primary school education for children – historians estimate for up to 400,000 students by the 1820s. Sometimes, they provided a higher level of education, and our hedge school run by Manus (Seamus O’Hara) and Hugh (Ciaran Hinds, heyyyy) seemed a mix of both: their students shout out the Greek or Latin etymologies of words used in regular conversation, they quote the Aeneid and the Odyssey, they talk of Greek mythology like they are friends with the gods (and at least our loony old man student Jimmy Jack (Dermot Crowley) believed he was), but then they also work on their times tables. So a general school of all things, and eventually, because of the damn English, a school of hard knocks?
When the English arrive with their mapmaking plan, their translator for the local language is Owen (Fra Fee, one of the best names), Hugh’s son and Manus’s brother, back after years establishing himself in the big cities. Owen doesn’t seem to mind erasing interesting old Irish names, with histories that locals like to share with each other so someone remembers, for English-friendly boring shit like White Plains and River Cross or whatever bullshit they came up with to replace like Billarendy Kragger. While he seems to be missing any respect for where he came from in his desire to change/better himself and his country, his partner in mapcrime, Lieutenant Yolland (Jack Bardoe), has a well-meaning but overly romanticized notion of ‘loving’ Ireland and the language, and the two surprising positions make for interesting subtle conflict. I also loved the subtle showing of the students feeling inferior and uneducated in front of the Englishmen since they couldn’t speak English, despite their ability to talk about the Greek gods and Latin poets and word origins like its nothing and despite the Englishmen’s inability to even recognize a Latin phrase. How did this assumption that English people are smarter begin? That’s some white nonsense.
Making for not so subtle conflict is the romance between the Lootellan and Maire, my hair twin, who always seemed destined to marry Manus but things a-change when the English come a-courting. Unforch for all, the Lootellan goes missing, and his military buddies, like all military buddies, are not happy and so they threaten increasing amounts of action/crime/murder until he is found, the gd fascists. The rapid development of drama and terror in act two is alarming, especially since it so worryingly relates to those in power today. The final image is so harrowing, earning a rare ‘faaaaak’ from me in the blackout before curtain call.
But aside from the distress of connecting the action to our crumbling society, Translations is terrific theatre. All the acting was strong, and some of my favorites I didn’t even mention yet (like the mute-but-working-on-it Sarah, played by Liadan Dunlea). With perfect timing, there was so much unexpected humor, and laugh-out-loud moments with the back-and-forth translations. The world they created was full, absorbing, and epic-feeling right off the bat, and it felt important, especially in trying to understand English history. I feel like this is the show for Irish people who felt overlooked by The Ferryman.
INFORMATION
Unfortunately, this ends its run tomorrow, December 18. but there are tickets available for tonight and tomorrow night so hop to it.
This is playing in the Olivier theatre inside the National Theatre (there are a few theatres in there).
DO NOT bring bags bigger than like a sheet of paper? About? Or they give you shit and might make you check it. Luckily I remembered and brought a little bag.
Act one is one hour and 20 minutes. Act two is under an hour and the 7:30pm curtain ended at 10:05pm.
There are toilets on the mezzanine level between the stalls doors level and the circle doors level, and these are always crowded because the people going up to the circle don’t realize that there are more toilets once you enter the circle doors and it’s awesomeeee. If you know. which I do. I also think the circle is better for this theatre because it’s a GD BARN (enormous) and you get a better view. Also if you sit in the front row of the circle your view begins at the tip of the stage, which is incredible for my blood pressure because it means you can’t see anyone in the stalls using their phones, the English bastards.
Also at one end of the circle bar now there’s a water machine for filling your bottles or cups! Whee! The line for that at the interval was longer than the bar line which like good for the world but bad for me.
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“The Ferryman” on the West End: Grim Irish History Told Through Family Dynamics
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about “The Ferryman”, currently in the West End until May 19. It is transferring to Broadway in the fall so get your tickets!
I know I tend to be extremely critical of what is in truth fairly decent theatre in London (I take my lead from the basketball coach in “Love & Basketball” (“you think I’d go hoarse for a player with no potential?” = how I live my life)). And while I’ll stand by my affirmation that British musical theatre is in an abysmal state, they do know how to do dramatic plays here. One of the most exciting British playwrights is Jez Butterworth (actual name), and every time he premieres a new play everyone on both sides of the Atlantic goes oh boy in a good way. His play “Jerusalem” won Mark Rylance another Tony and people raved about it even though I have approximately zero idea what was happening on that stage aside from Mark doing a keg stand at one point I think? I skipped Hugh Jackman in “The River” because early reports said he pretty much sits on a log and de-bones a fish for the 2 hours and as fascinating as that shit sounds my attentions were better diverted elsewhere. Luckily, third time appears to be the charm for me and dear old Jez (who I just learned wrote “Spectre” and “Edge of Tomorrow”?? way to get those Hollywood bones Jezzy!) because his newest work “The Ferryman” is astonishing.
I know I tend to be extremely critical of what is in truth fairly decent theatre in London (I take my lead from the basketball coach in “Love & Basketball” (“you think I’d go hoarse for a player with no potential?” = how I live my life)). And while I’ll stand by my affirmation that British musical theatre is in an abysmal state, they do know how to do dramatic plays here. One of the most exciting British playwrights is Jez Butterworth (actual name), and every time he premieres a new play everyone on both sides of the Atlantic goes oh boy in a good way. His play “Jerusalem” won Mark Rylance another Tony and people raved about it even though I have approximately zero idea what was happening on that stage aside from Mark doing a keg stand at one point I think? I skipped Hugh Jackman in “The River” because early reports said he pretty much sits on a log and de-bones a fish for the 2 hours and as fascinating as that shit sounds my attentions were better diverted elsewhere. Luckily, third time appears to be the charm for me and dear old Jez (who I just learned wrote “Spectre” and “Edge of Tomorrow”?? way to get those Hollywood bones Jezzy!) because his newest work “The Ferryman” is astonishing.
Despite Jezzington’s being English, this play about Ireland and the IRA in the 1980s feels as authentic and real and accurate as any play has. For those of you who are like ‘eh what’s the difference’ NO it’s a very big deal and this play tells you why. Granted I’m not exactly the foremost living expert on the subject and literally knew as little as possible about this history while not living under a rock before seeing the show, as I am neither British nor of the 99% of Americans claiming to have Irish blood. But everything I needed to know was effectively communicated by Jezathon’s pitch-perfect dialogue and Sam Mendes’s precise direction, fully transporting me to this other world and filling in any gaps. I had no doubts or questions of ‘why is this happening’ or ‘what does that mean’; everything is accounted for or if not it doesn’t matter because you trust that it will come. The whole feel of the play was masterful. Its three acts weave personal and public stories together in a compelling way, and once it ends (with a roar) you realize everything comes together in an even more extraordinary way.
“The Ferryman” tells the story of the Carney family in northern Ireland during the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army was getting more and more violent and they ‘disappeared’ nonconformists and fighters were dying of hunger strikes and generally everything was a bit terrifying for mostly everyone, as is normally the case during times of war and/or struggle. The Carneys are a large clan with more and more children seeming to come out of the baseboards as the story begins, including an actual baby. When one of the teenage kids comes down the stairs (really steep really long stairs, mind you, and I was like omg don’t fall don’t fall omg don’t) holding the real infant and not a doll or a wrapped up melon like plays usually use, the audience gasped like they had never seen a baby before. I mean I get it, it is noteworthy and look I am talking about it still, but man alive. The audience similarly gasps and shrieks when live rabbits and geese appear onstage (I do not approve of using animals for your art because most of the time it is unnecessary and here it also adds nothing but at least they treat the animals well? ughhh stop it though).
We meet the apparent heads of the family, Quinn (Owen McDonnell) and Caitlin (Rosalie Craig), in the wee small hours, having a grand time (they do say grand a lot too, these Irish) as everyone else (children, cousins, ancient great aunts and uncles) sleeps. When it is revealed through casual dialogue in a later scene that Caitlin is actually Quinn’s sister-in-law, and he’s really married to a different woman named Mary (we had an understudy and she did not make an impression, although the character doesn’t have much to go for her anyway), the realization is even more dramatic than the one for ‘oh shit that’s a real baby!’ It’s one small example of how the meticulous direction and writing makes everything seem momentous and yet realistic at the same time. Caitlin married Quinn’s brother Seamus decades prior, and they had a son who is now a teenager. But 10 years ago, Seamus went missing, and ever since then Caitlin and her son have been living with Quinn and his family and the extended fam in a situation ripe for drama, not the least of which is that Caitlin and Quinn have been falling in love with each other.
Their world is shaken when news arrives that Seamus’s body had finally been found, putting to rest any doubts about whether he had run off or had been taken out as well as any hopes of his return. Considering how long they’ve lived without him, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to adjust to the truth, especially since many assumed he was dead from the start. But it’s undeniable now that his death was linked to the IRA, and not for Seamus’s own doings but for his brother’s, and so the whole family is in jeopardy until the Mafioso-like boss man is satisfied that the family will stay quiet about it all. Meanwhile, it’s time for the men to bring in the annual harvest and celebrate it, so they invite their cousins in to help with the work and the food-filled celebration, all while we hear of the freedom fighters dying of hunger strikes. The family lives, like everyone does, in whatever protective bubble they can form, but as always the outside world bursts it eventually.
The arrival of the tough male cousins for the harvest brings even more issues, as they are much more politically oriented and eager to join the IRA. Their younger cousins are susceptible to their big ideas, especially Caitlin’s son Oisin (Laurie Kynaston who pretty much shook the entire time to convey how f-ed he was), and their conversations about the fight and what needs to be sacrificed for freedom were stressful beyond belief. The line between what’s necessary for freedom and what should never be asked of someone has never been dramatized so well by simply having young men talk out their asses, as they do. The acting in these scenes from Francis Mezza and Terence Keeley had my blood pressure up so high, like dangerously high, so they must have done a really good job. Fortunately these scenes, of all the male cousins, have the best comic relief. There’s the youngest of the visiting cousins who curbs his constant drinking (as everyone onstage is indeed constantly drinking; they are Irish) with “Well, as they say, there’s only so much whiskey a 13-year-old boy can drink.” And then there’s my favorite line in the whole show, when one of them tells the joke: “You know how you know The Elephant Man was a Protestant? Because he looked like a feckin’ Protestant.” Oh my god it’s my new favorite joke.
Even with all these child actors (who are notoriously weak save for Sydney Lucas), I can’t think of one false note from this cast. I was nervous because we saw the replacement cast, as I was stupid and didn’t really care to see the show when it first premiered because I had musicals to see baby! So we missed out on the great Paddy Considine and Laura Donnelly as Quinn and Caitlin. Laura won the Olivier for this role and – more importantly – appears from my research to be the g-d inspiration for the play, as her uncle was disappeared by the IRA when she was a baby and Jezzothy was like hey partner-at-the-time-is-it-gonna-be-weird-when-we-make-this-play-and-we’re-no-longer-together, that’s sounds like a good idea for a play! Feck, as they say. But I honestly can’t imagine the original cast being any better. I had no idea that Rosalie Craig, who I really like, was going to be in it, so I was excited and my high expectations were exceeded beyond measure. Everyone was fantastic, not least Justin Edwards as Tom Kettle, the slow Englishman who the Carney family helps and treats as family despite all the republicans despising every last English person and wanting to get rid of him simply for his heritage. His Tom pulled at all the heartstrings but good, even though I think the large-and-dim-witted-but-good-hearted-man-who-will-face-tragedy-by-play’s-end trope has been overused in theatre.
Given how much happens and how much we learn about so many characters, it’s surprising that it’s only three hours. The fact that I’m using the word ‘only’ to describe a play that’s longer than my two faves of this season (The Band’s Visit and Once On This Island) PUT TOGETHER and that has only one interval so I had to pee distractingly badly says a lot about how well done it all is. I can’t think of a better written play I have seen over here, honestly. The layers of interpretation and meaning in the writing never seem to reach an endpoint. So much symbolism abounds and so much links the different generations. The title refers to the mythological ferryman, Charon, of the river Styx who collects the souls of the newly dead and brings them from our world to the other, except for those souls from bodies left unburied (like Seamus) who have to wander the shores for 100 years. The darkness of this reference adds even further shadow to this story. The thwarted love between Caitlin and Quinn mirrors the sadness of their own relatives, with both great aunts telling the children the tales of their lost loves. One of those aunts, the best one, named I shit you not Aunt Maggie Far Away (because her dementia brings her to far away places when she isn’t present), recounts at one point her siblings’ dealings with the IRA when they were younger, and how when those interactions came to a head she saw banshees, endless scores of them, on their farm. When she screams at the end that she sees them again, coming to this farm, and that everything mentioned earlier has come full circle as history always does, you realize that Jezzbury does full circle endings better than Amy Sherman-Palladino could ever dream. And that ending, man alive (or not, as it is). I will break my normal rule of spoiling whatever I write about since this one is coming to Broadway next season and I don’t want to ruin anything, so I’ll just suggest that you gird your loins.
“The Ferryman” tells the story of the Carney family in northern Ireland during the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army was getting more and more violent and they ‘disappeared’ nonconformists and fighters were dying of hunger strikes and generally everything was a bit terrifying for mostly everyone, as is normally the case during times of war and/or struggle. The Carneys are a large clan with more and more children seeming to come out of the baseboards as the story begins, including an actual baby. When one of the teenage kids comes down the stairs (really steep really long stairs, mind you, and I was like omg don’t fall don’t fall omg don’t) holding the real infant and not a doll or a wrapped up melon like plays usually use, the audience gasped like they had never seen a baby before. I mean I get it, it is noteworthy and look I am talking about it still, but man alive. The audience similarly gasps and shrieks when live rabbits and geese appear onstage (I do not approve of using animals for your art because most of the time it is unnecessary and here it also adds nothing but at least they treat the animals well? ughhh stop it though).
We meet the apparent heads of the family, Quinn (Owen McDonnell) and Caitlin (Rosalie Craig), in the wee small hours, having a grand time (they do say grand a lot too, these Irish) as everyone else (children, cousins, ancient great aunts and uncles) sleeps. When it is revealed through casual dialogue in a later scene that Caitlin is actually Quinn’s sister-in-law, and he’s really married to a different woman named Mary (we had an understudy and she did not make an impression, although the character doesn’t have much to go for her anyway), the realization is even more dramatic than the one for ‘oh shit that’s a real baby!’ It’s one small example of how the meticulous direction and writing makes everything seem momentous and yet realistic at the same time. Caitlin married Quinn’s brother Seamus decades prior, and they had a son who is now a teenager. But 10 years ago, Seamus went missing, and ever since then Caitlin and her son have been living with Quinn and his family and the extended fam in a situation ripe for drama, not the least of which is that Caitlin and Quinn have been falling in love with each other.
Their world is shaken when news arrives that Seamus’s body had finally been found, putting to rest any doubts about whether he had run off or had been taken out as well as any hopes of his return. Considering how long they’ve lived without him, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to adjust to the truth, especially since many assumed he was dead from the start. But it’s undeniable now that his death was linked to the IRA, and not for Seamus’s own doings but for his brother’s, and so the whole family is in jeopardy until the Mafioso-like boss man is satisfied that the family will stay quiet about it all. Meanwhile, it’s time for the men to bring in the annual harvest and celebrate it, so they invite their cousins in to help with the work and the food-filled celebration, all while we hear of the freedom fighters dying of hunger strikes. The family lives, like everyone does, in whatever protective bubble they can form, but as always the outside world bursts it eventually.
The arrival of the tough male cousins for the harvest brings even more issues, as they are much more politically oriented and eager to join the IRA. Their younger cousins are susceptible to their big ideas, especially Caitlin’s son Oisin (Laurie Kynaston who pretty much shook the entire time to convey how f-ed he was), and their conversations about the fight and what needs to be sacrificed for freedom were stressful beyond belief. The line between what’s necessary for freedom and what should never be asked of someone has never been dramatized so well by simply having young men talk out their asses, as they do. The acting in these scenes from Francis Mezza and Terence Keeley had my blood pressure up so high, like dangerously high, so they must have done a really good job. Fortunately these scenes, of all the male cousins, have the best comic relief. There’s the youngest of the visiting cousins who curbs his constant drinking (as everyone onstage is indeed constantly drinking; they are Irish) with “Well, as they say, there’s only so much whiskey a 13-year-old boy can drink.” And then there’s my favorite line in the whole show, when one of them tells the joke: “You know how you know The Elephant Man was a Protestant? Because he looked like a feckin’ Protestant.” Oh my god it’s my new favorite joke.
Even with all these child actors (who are notoriously weak save for Sydney Lucas), I can’t think of one false note from this cast. I was nervous because we saw the replacement cast, as I was stupid and didn’t really care to see the show when it first premiered because I had musicals to see baby! So we missed out on the great Paddy Considine and Laura Donnelly as Quinn and Caitlin. Laura won the Olivier for this role and – more importantly – appears from my research to be the g-d inspiration for the play, as her uncle was disappeared by the IRA when she was a baby and Jezzothy was like hey partner-at-the-time-is-it-gonna-be-weird-when-we-make-this-play-and-we’re-no-longer-together, that’s sounds like a good idea for a play! Feck, as they say. But I honestly can’t imagine the original cast being any better. I had no idea that Rosalie Craig, who I really like, was going to be in it, so I was excited and my high expectations were exceeded beyond measure. Everyone was fantastic, not least Justin Edwards as Tom Kettle, the slow Englishman who the Carney family helps and treats as family despite all the republicans despising every last English person and wanting to get rid of him simply for his heritage. His Tom pulled at all the heartstrings but good, even though I think the large-and-dim-witted-but-good-hearted-man-who-will-face-tragedy-by-play’s-end trope has been overused in theatre.
Given how much happens and how much we learn about so many characters, it’s surprising that it’s only three hours. The fact that I’m using the word ‘only’ to describe a play that’s longer than my two faves of this season (The Band’s Visit and Once On This Island) PUT TOGETHER and that has only one interval so I had to pee distractingly badly says a lot about how well done it all is. I can’t think of a better written play I have seen over here, honestly. The layers of interpretation and meaning in the writing never seem to reach an endpoint. So much symbolism abounds and so much links the different generations. The title refers to the mythological ferryman, Charon, of the river Styx who collects the souls of the newly dead and brings them from our world to the other, except for those souls from bodies left unburied (like Seamus) who have to wander the shores for 100 years. The darkness of this reference adds even further shadow to this story. The thwarted love between Caitlin and Quinn mirrors the sadness of their own relatives, with both great aunts telling the children the tales of their lost loves. One of those aunts, the best one, named I shit you not Aunt Maggie Far Away (because her dementia brings her to far away places when she isn’t present), recounts at one point her siblings’ dealings with the IRA when they were younger, and how when those interactions came to a head she saw banshees, endless scores of them, on their farm. When she screams at the end that she sees them again, coming to this farm, and that everything mentioned earlier has come full circle as history always does, you realize that Jezzbury does full circle endings better than Amy Sherman-Palladino could ever dream. And that ending, man alive (or not, as it is). I will break my normal rule of spoiling whatever I write about since this one is coming to Broadway next season and I don’t want to ruin anything, so I’ll just suggest that you gird your loins.
INFORMATION
“The Ferryman” is playing at London’s Gielgud Theatre until May 19. There is one interval after just under one hour, which means you have to go two more hours without a bathroom break, unless you are the lady in front of me who positively SPRINTED during the 2-minute ‘pause’ between Acts II and III and made it back just as the lights were dimming again so needless to say I have a new hero. I enjoyed my seat on the stage left aisle in the front of the stalls, but be warned that the Gielgud, like the vast majority of London theatres, is a POS when it comes to design so the only bathrooms for the stalls are literally in the back of the stalls, and getting to them if you aren’t in the back is like a Tough Mudder course. Also, there are only 3 stalls. For the whole of the orchestra level. Someone needs to shut down all of the West End and refurbish these theatres until they make one iota of goddamn sense.
AUDIENCE
The audience was fine as far as phones go, decent as far as whispering goes, and horrible as far as being so sick that they should have gone to hospital instead of the theatre goes. Blech.
BEST PART
It’s five minutes’ walk from Yorica, the vegan ice cream salon, so yay because after the play ends and you are like ‘oh my god oh my god what the feck the previous three hours of my life and the previous hundred years of UK history is now falling on top of me and crushing me metaphorically but it all feels so real because well it is real and oh shit is it all going to happen again because of Brexit and what did humans do to this world and ahhhhhh’, you can go get ice cream and you really should because it helps.
“Oppenheimer”: Decent But Unedited New London Play
The story of the American scientist who created the atomic bomb sounds like it could be either interesting or boring. The new London show achieves both. The first act is well done and pretty compelling, but the second act had seven end points and needs hella cutting. Still, it’s an interesting story that’s worth seeing – especially if they fix it before the next production.
We begin in Oppy’s (as his “friends” call him) house as his (repeatedly described non-monogamous) girlfriend hosts a drunken neurotic fundraiser for ‘the Spanish crisis’ in the early stages of World War II. Her agitated uneasy speeches show us 1) they’re all proud Communists and b) she, Jean, is quite mentally unstable. I wouldn’t want to be friends with these people. All pretentious in their highly educated status, showing how caring and cultured they are by getting drunk and dancing all night in the name of supporting the less fortunate who are being tortured, starved, and killed. It struck me as an ugly scene but extremely illustrative of this group of middle class people. I was told that Oppenheimer was famously hard to get along with, but instead of showing us that, we see that compared to his social circle he was the lovable puppy in the crowd, at least at the beginning. So that was a curious creative choice.
This whole show is pretty much questionable creative choices, actually. Considering how curious a choice of subject matter this wholly American story is for a small British production to begin with, every decision thereafter seemed rushed or at least ill-advised. The frequent little science lessons were the most effective and entertaining parts of the show, kind of like how the best part of “The Big Bang Theory” is any actual science you learn amid the drivel. As far as I could tell, the mini lectures and the discussion-based lessons Oppy’s protégés gave us were accurate. Then again I wouldn’t really know. I mean they were talking about the science behind the atom bomb. If you really understood it you would have been there. When they talked about science, the play was at its most natural and interesting. Then again I liked school. We learn about atom composition, atom splitting, all kinds of things. Through these lessons and science-focused conversations, we learn with them that Germans split the atom, letting loose a whole bunch of crap and energy. Our Murkan scientists freak the f out, as you do, and realized holy crap, this could lead to enormous explosions to end all explosions, possibly igniting the earth’s atmosphere, or destroying the earth, or at least countries! Then they realized, holy crap, we really need to get ahead of the Germans on this so we win the war. That was at least one of the accurate points, that they were always racing to get ahead of the Germans, whom we assumed were indeed ahead of us, when in fact they knew pretty much nothing the whole time.
Things pick up from here, as Oppy gathers the finest minds in science (or at least northern California), then the military takes over as it does, and the whole shebang becomes the super secret Manhattan Project.
The military’s involvement/control is obviously a mixed blessing. They get resources, power, land, and uranium, but also lots of bullshit and awfulness. Any red-leaning brains (everyone we met in the beginning) get shipped off to war or to Alaska because Murka was awful afear’d back then of people who may have thought differently. The interference with (or, often, hindrance of) science in the name of democracy is an extremely frustrating and terrifying thing that the military enjoyed doing. Good thing the government lets science be now!
As more progress is made on the bomb, Oppy becomes more and more of a righteous jackass, as the weight of what he’s doing weighs on him. Or doesn’t. We hear a lot of big speeches about how Oppy is lead and ytterbium and iron, stable at the core, and that he carries the responsibility without it breaking him. I guess it was supposed to be an ironic statement of stability? or disaffectedness? Because obviously it broke or at least injured him. But that wasn’t clear. It was more of a disconnect between words and actions than it was irony. Like unintentional disjunction. (I’m looking at you, Mr. Director.)
A lot is said about how Oppy was chosen to lead the project because the military could control or at least predict his behavior. As they wanted, he broke off contact with his commie brother for a long time, he turned friends in to the inquisitors, he shipped off some of his best students to war and refused to help them when they returned. He got real jerky like. I mean, if you were spending the prime of your life devoted to ending others’ lives, you’d prob go dark like Emma’s doing right now on “Once Upon A Time” (best show ever??). but the repeated thesis that he was unbreakable (they alive, dammit!) and resilient came across more incorrect than poignant.
At least Oppy was played by a decent actor, John Heffernan. I thought he was pretty good and then when I recognized him from the new BBC series “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” (which I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview of recently because I’m so important in the London entertainment scene) my thoughts were confirmed because only the best people are in that show. But there was a lot of not-so-decent acting on display here. I have issues with mainstem West End shows lately, so this (it’s like an off-West End production) had more. Everyone seemed a slight notch below where they should have been, especially with their American accents. Say your freaking r’s! And every time anyone said the word ‘sir’ but with another word coming after it, it became ‘suh’ and just ugh come on. Also no one could say ‘apparently’ without it getting super loose in the vowels when in American the vowels need to be constricted. I feel like dialect coaches are not valued anymore.
Everything just seemed a little jumbled, likely due to direction. Funnily enough, at the beginning, I despised Oppy’s girlfriend Jean and his friend’s wife Charlotte with the weird New England WASP country club/faux Katherine Hepburn accent. But by the end, these two actresses, Catherine Steadman and Sandy Foster, were my favorites. I don’t know if they got better with more meaty scenes, if I got nicer, or if it was just the power of comparison working in their favor.
One person I did not like was Oppy’s wife Kitty, played by Thomasin Rand. Maybe because that name is ludicrous, but I couldn’t get a handle on her. I don’t know if you’re supposed to hate her of if you’re supposed to feel bad for her because her husband is so preoccupied and she’s always (always) pregnant (and drinking to the point of alcoholism and smoking like a chimney throughout), but I didn’t. Or maybe her hatefulness comes from her husband’s stated lack of ability to connect or form real bonds and she’s like I left that foppish but super polite British guy for this? (And yes we see the very awkward courtship between Oppy and Kitty as they have an affair, get pregnant, and then ask said British guy for a divorce. He, by the way, had the funniest accent in the whole play, which was odd because he’s the only one who gets to be his real nationality. It was like an American doing an over-the-top British accent but the actor was really British, so I loved it. I hope it was on purpose.)
Or maybe it’s because her husband may have been in love with another woman the whole time. His earlier love, Jean, was clearly always special to him and their deep connection seemed to have persisted until her unfortunate suicide. She was unable to deal with her chemically unbalanced mind and the FBI agents tapping her phone and sitting outside her house all day and night because of her political views and ties to Oppy. It was all very upsetting and tragic. After her death, we get more reason to despise Oppy and Kitty as they agree that suicide is extremely self-centered and that Jean was super selfish for killing herself. At least they agreed on something? I wonder how accurate this portrayal was, because that’s a big black mark to paint on a person’s character. Do not like.
I wonder how accurate all of it was, actually. If all of Oppy’s contacts were under government surveillance for their political views, if the general in charge was really somehow everywhere all the time and in every important science discussion, if the captain on the project talked in an exaggerated American accent like he was just pulled from the set of “A Few Good Men”, if one of Oppy’s protégés apparently learned his American accent from the aforementioned “Big Bang Theory” (he sounded exactly like Sheldon and was my fave part). One of my favorite characters was Edward Teller, the Hungarian scientist who created the hydrogen bomb, or ‘super’. In the show, he was pushing Oppy to focus on the super during WW2, which seemed early but was apparently accurate, despite no real work being done on it until after the war. Ben Allen, the actor playing Teller, was pretty funny at times and made Teller one of the most sympathetic characters onstage, which I’m not sure was the intent given that Teller in real life was kind of a lunatic. So I’m told, I don’t know.
The first act had a lot of good learning and commies and New Mexico and more commies and excitement and stuff. The second act, hoo boy, it kind of fell apart in ways you could not imagine. First of all, at 1.5 hours each act, the play was way too long for what they did with the time. Do shows not have editors anymore? Act II could easily be 30-40 minutes shorter. Here’s what they should do: First, cut the kid. When we are supposed to assume they’ve dropped the first bomb, a child climbs out of the sunroof of the bomb, which is on stage, and he GIVES A MONOLOGUE. A kid that we have not met before, just this random punk kid with THE WORST American accent who has a few ridiculously pretentious paragraphs to recite about life and death and ephemerality maybe and who knows what and of course he messed up a line. He had literally one job. CUT THAT. It was nonsense and it brought the show to a screeching halt and not only added nothing but significantly detracted from the impact. I almost screamed for them to get the hook.
Next, cut the really freaky deaky and out of place bongo-drum circle and drug-induced drunken rave that followed the first test run of the bomb that occurred UNDER THE BOMB ACTING AS A DISCO BALL. I kid you not. I’m sure this wackadoo scene may have worked in some incarnation of this play, but it was not the one I saw. You can’t have a straight serious play and then throw in one super trippy conceptual scene for shits and giggles. It was completely weird with every character giving mini pretentious monologues about, well, life and death and ephemerality and who knows what while the rest of the cast was waving their arms in prayer to the gods of explosions in the fire and doing tribal chants like they were in a goddamn regional production of “Hair” while on acid. For like 10 minutes, sandwiched between serious science and black & white scenes, we uncomfortably watched this rave while the actors said lines like “The sun shone brightly like a diamond.” Well that might be Rhianna but you get my point. Omg.
Then, cut the next false ending of big grand speeches (yes there are more) that are terribly written and unnatural in Oppy and Bob’s classroom. I REALLY didn’t need to hear that bit about the horse Bob saw in Hiroshima after the bomb dropped. It was really graphic and disturbing but without the slightest need for it. I really didn’t appreciate that. So many sentences in this back half of Act II no one would ever say in real life, like overly wordy high school English essay kind of writing, when you think you sound smart but it actually makes you sound dumber.
I was thinking, such an important story should have been done better. But, then I thought, wait, is it such an important story? It is necessary to know the guy who built the atomic bomb and what not, but is this section of his life story necessary? Do we need to know he was kind of a jerk and had shitty friends and was a shitty friend and suffered a lot? And if so, why? His brilliant mind helped us do massacring of a newfangled variety, which the world is thankful for in a grotesque way, but was he necessary? Even his wife asks the general at some point why they didn’t pick Einstein or another great scientist who could have done it. The answer in this show is that the leader of this project needed this project to be his career highlight, and the other big name scientists already had other significant achievements in their careers. Cool. A more interesting story would have continued to the government’s turning on him after the war and their awful investigation into his political views, kind of like how the British government turned on Alan Turing after the war after he freaking saved their lives those ungrateful ignorant assholes. God knows in three hours would could have covered all of that. But we didn’t really get to it, probably because of all the unnecessary speechifying. So there were some really interesting choices made in this play. I’m not sure they worked, but despite all the weirdness it was still pretty good. I just wish they had hired an editor.
AUDIENCE: CONGRATULATIONS, Oppenheimer audience! This was the first time in many years that I did not see a cell phone being used during the show. I mean, that is pretty remarkable. However, there was this awful young couple behind me who talked the entire time. And I mean the entire time. I regret not saying something at intermission but I feared them cutting my hair during Act II or something. I did give them the good old death stare a few times though. I am proud of that.
Things pick up from here, as Oppy gathers the finest minds in science (or at least northern California), then the military takes over as it does, and the whole shebang becomes the super secret Manhattan Project.
The military’s involvement/control is obviously a mixed blessing. They get resources, power, land, and uranium, but also lots of bullshit and awfulness. Any red-leaning brains (everyone we met in the beginning) get shipped off to war or to Alaska because Murka was awful afear’d back then of people who may have thought differently. The interference with (or, often, hindrance of) science in the name of democracy is an extremely frustrating and terrifying thing that the military enjoyed doing. Good thing the government lets science be now!
As more progress is made on the bomb, Oppy becomes more and more of a righteous jackass, as the weight of what he’s doing weighs on him. Or doesn’t. We hear a lot of big speeches about how Oppy is lead and ytterbium and iron, stable at the core, and that he carries the responsibility without it breaking him. I guess it was supposed to be an ironic statement of stability? or disaffectedness? Because obviously it broke or at least injured him. But that wasn’t clear. It was more of a disconnect between words and actions than it was irony. Like unintentional disjunction. (I’m looking at you, Mr. Director.)
A lot is said about how Oppy was chosen to lead the project because the military could control or at least predict his behavior. As they wanted, he broke off contact with his commie brother for a long time, he turned friends in to the inquisitors, he shipped off some of his best students to war and refused to help them when they returned. He got real jerky like. I mean, if you were spending the prime of your life devoted to ending others’ lives, you’d prob go dark like Emma’s doing right now on “Once Upon A Time” (best show ever??). but the repeated thesis that he was unbreakable (they alive, dammit!) and resilient came across more incorrect than poignant.
At least Oppy was played by a decent actor, John Heffernan. I thought he was pretty good and then when I recognized him from the new BBC series “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” (which I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview of recently because I’m so important in the London entertainment scene) my thoughts were confirmed because only the best people are in that show. But there was a lot of not-so-decent acting on display here. I have issues with mainstem West End shows lately, so this (it’s like an off-West End production) had more. Everyone seemed a slight notch below where they should have been, especially with their American accents. Say your freaking r’s! And every time anyone said the word ‘sir’ but with another word coming after it, it became ‘suh’ and just ugh come on. Also no one could say ‘apparently’ without it getting super loose in the vowels when in American the vowels need to be constricted. I feel like dialect coaches are not valued anymore.
Everything just seemed a little jumbled, likely due to direction. Funnily enough, at the beginning, I despised Oppy’s girlfriend Jean and his friend’s wife Charlotte with the weird New England WASP country club/faux Katherine Hepburn accent. But by the end, these two actresses, Catherine Steadman and Sandy Foster, were my favorites. I don’t know if they got better with more meaty scenes, if I got nicer, or if it was just the power of comparison working in their favor.
One person I did not like was Oppy’s wife Kitty, played by Thomasin Rand. Maybe because that name is ludicrous, but I couldn’t get a handle on her. I don’t know if you’re supposed to hate her of if you’re supposed to feel bad for her because her husband is so preoccupied and she’s always (always) pregnant (and drinking to the point of alcoholism and smoking like a chimney throughout), but I didn’t. Or maybe her hatefulness comes from her husband’s stated lack of ability to connect or form real bonds and she’s like I left that foppish but super polite British guy for this? (And yes we see the very awkward courtship between Oppy and Kitty as they have an affair, get pregnant, and then ask said British guy for a divorce. He, by the way, had the funniest accent in the whole play, which was odd because he’s the only one who gets to be his real nationality. It was like an American doing an over-the-top British accent but the actor was really British, so I loved it. I hope it was on purpose.)
Or maybe it’s because her husband may have been in love with another woman the whole time. His earlier love, Jean, was clearly always special to him and their deep connection seemed to have persisted until her unfortunate suicide. She was unable to deal with her chemically unbalanced mind and the FBI agents tapping her phone and sitting outside her house all day and night because of her political views and ties to Oppy. It was all very upsetting and tragic. After her death, we get more reason to despise Oppy and Kitty as they agree that suicide is extremely self-centered and that Jean was super selfish for killing herself. At least they agreed on something? I wonder how accurate this portrayal was, because that’s a big black mark to paint on a person’s character. Do not like.
I wonder how accurate all of it was, actually. If all of Oppy’s contacts were under government surveillance for their political views, if the general in charge was really somehow everywhere all the time and in every important science discussion, if the captain on the project talked in an exaggerated American accent like he was just pulled from the set of “A Few Good Men”, if one of Oppy’s protégés apparently learned his American accent from the aforementioned “Big Bang Theory” (he sounded exactly like Sheldon and was my fave part). One of my favorite characters was Edward Teller, the Hungarian scientist who created the hydrogen bomb, or ‘super’. In the show, he was pushing Oppy to focus on the super during WW2, which seemed early but was apparently accurate, despite no real work being done on it until after the war. Ben Allen, the actor playing Teller, was pretty funny at times and made Teller one of the most sympathetic characters onstage, which I’m not sure was the intent given that Teller in real life was kind of a lunatic. So I’m told, I don’t know.
The first act had a lot of good learning and commies and New Mexico and more commies and excitement and stuff. The second act, hoo boy, it kind of fell apart in ways you could not imagine. First of all, at 1.5 hours each act, the play was way too long for what they did with the time. Do shows not have editors anymore? Act II could easily be 30-40 minutes shorter. Here’s what they should do: First, cut the kid. When we are supposed to assume they’ve dropped the first bomb, a child climbs out of the sunroof of the bomb, which is on stage, and he GIVES A MONOLOGUE. A kid that we have not met before, just this random punk kid with THE WORST American accent who has a few ridiculously pretentious paragraphs to recite about life and death and ephemerality maybe and who knows what and of course he messed up a line. He had literally one job. CUT THAT. It was nonsense and it brought the show to a screeching halt and not only added nothing but significantly detracted from the impact. I almost screamed for them to get the hook.
Next, cut the really freaky deaky and out of place bongo-drum circle and drug-induced drunken rave that followed the first test run of the bomb that occurred UNDER THE BOMB ACTING AS A DISCO BALL. I kid you not. I’m sure this wackadoo scene may have worked in some incarnation of this play, but it was not the one I saw. You can’t have a straight serious play and then throw in one super trippy conceptual scene for shits and giggles. It was completely weird with every character giving mini pretentious monologues about, well, life and death and ephemerality and who knows what while the rest of the cast was waving their arms in prayer to the gods of explosions in the fire and doing tribal chants like they were in a goddamn regional production of “Hair” while on acid. For like 10 minutes, sandwiched between serious science and black & white scenes, we uncomfortably watched this rave while the actors said lines like “The sun shone brightly like a diamond.” Well that might be Rhianna but you get my point. Omg.
Then, cut the next false ending of big grand speeches (yes there are more) that are terribly written and unnatural in Oppy and Bob’s classroom. I REALLY didn’t need to hear that bit about the horse Bob saw in Hiroshima after the bomb dropped. It was really graphic and disturbing but without the slightest need for it. I really didn’t appreciate that. So many sentences in this back half of Act II no one would ever say in real life, like overly wordy high school English essay kind of writing, when you think you sound smart but it actually makes you sound dumber.
I was thinking, such an important story should have been done better. But, then I thought, wait, is it such an important story? It is necessary to know the guy who built the atomic bomb and what not, but is this section of his life story necessary? Do we need to know he was kind of a jerk and had shitty friends and was a shitty friend and suffered a lot? And if so, why? His brilliant mind helped us do massacring of a newfangled variety, which the world is thankful for in a grotesque way, but was he necessary? Even his wife asks the general at some point why they didn’t pick Einstein or another great scientist who could have done it. The answer in this show is that the leader of this project needed this project to be his career highlight, and the other big name scientists already had other significant achievements in their careers. Cool. A more interesting story would have continued to the government’s turning on him after the war and their awful investigation into his political views, kind of like how the British government turned on Alan Turing after the war after he freaking saved their lives those ungrateful ignorant assholes. God knows in three hours would could have covered all of that. But we didn’t really get to it, probably because of all the unnecessary speechifying. So there were some really interesting choices made in this play. I’m not sure they worked, but despite all the weirdness it was still pretty good. I just wish they had hired an editor.
AUDIENCE: CONGRATULATIONS, Oppenheimer audience! This was the first time in many years that I did not see a cell phone being used during the show. I mean, that is pretty remarkable. However, there was this awful young couple behind me who talked the entire time. And I mean the entire time. I regret not saying something at intermission but I feared them cutting my hair during Act II or something. I did give them the good old death stare a few times though. I am proud of that.
