{"id":11121,"date":"2019-11-28T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11121"},"modified":"2019-11-27T16:58:27","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T16:58:27","slug":"touching-the-void-please-dont-ever-make-me-ice-climb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2019\/11\/28\/touching-the-void-please-dont-ever-make-me-ice-climb\/","title":{"rendered":"Touching the Void: Please Don\u2019t Ever Make Me Ice Climb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It\u2019s Theatre Thursday!\nToday\u2019s show is Touching the Void, playing at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in <\/em>London<\/em> until February 29.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For as long as I can remember, I\u2019ve been terrified of outer\nspace. Whenever I watch a movie like Gravity<\/em>,\nmy head is usually in my lap for most of the space parts and while I\nhyperventilate I\u2019m like \u2018please for the love of god never ever make me go into\nspace.\u2019 And now, making me climb a mountain where you need to use ice axes and\nwhere as soon as you take a break you get hypothermia sounds so much worse. Do\nnot make me do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That I kept my shit together (well enough) during this\nstress-test-gone-insane of a play to realize how well they were telling this\nstory is a testament to just how well they did it. I feel so lucky to be, I\nthink, one of the very very few people in the audience and maybe in the world\nwho had nooooo idea about this true story before I saw this play. There\u2019s a\nreally famous documentary about the real people who did this climb and what\nwent wrong and I guess \u2018everyone\u2019 knows about it and I knew nnnnothing about it\neven though it won a BAFTA. (Both works are based on a book, and I don\u2019t want\nto tell you who wrote the book because that\u2019s a spoiler and I don\u2019t futz with\nspoilers.) I can\u2019t compare the play to the documentary, as a result, but I can\nsay that if you don\u2019t know the story, holy wow are you in for a wild ride. And\ngiven the rest of the audience\u2019s reaction, I\u2019m pretty sure it will be just as\ngripping and impressive if you do know the story. But I am so grateful that I\ngot to experience this thrilling theatre as a blank slate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1985, Joe Simpson (Josh Williams (those are like the same\nname)) and Simon Yates (Edward Hayter) set out to become the first climbers to\nreach the summit of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, a mountain climb so\ndifficult that no one had done it and yet these two bros are like oh but we can\ndo it and we should do the west face because it\u2019s impossible and also we\u2019ll\nclimb the old fashioned way, just the two of us with no team to help us so like\nYEAH they\u2019re GONNA die. The play begins with a wake post-tragedy, as Joe\u2019s\nsister Sarah (Fiona Hampton) attempts to understand why her brother felt the\nneed to do crazy bananas shit like this. I was unsure at the beginning of the\nability to translate this story to the stage, because the wake start felt rough\nand struggled to get off on the right foot. (Also, I couldn\u2019t help but feel\nanger at Joe for putting his sister through this, as well as the family we\ndon\u2019t see, but that\u2019s a whole nother conversation about living your life I\nguess.) The super loud booming club music pounding through the theatre before\nshowtime (and during the interval, PASS) didn\u2019t help. That interval music is\neven odder considering the action that comes before it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But rather quickly, once they started telling the story via\nflashback, so it seemed, and really once they started climbing (even Sarah\u2019s\nclimb on the chairs), it kicked off and became riveting. With Tom Miller\u2019s\ndirection and incredible physicality from the cast, doubts about this story\u2019s\nstageworthiness dissipated. Somehow,\nwatching them climb onstage made for truly gripping theatre, thanks to the\nbrilliant set design and climbing choreography. You\u2019d think that the biggest\ndifference between the play and the movie, and where the movie wins out, is the\nability to show the actual mountain and their actual climbing. But how they\nrecreate it on an enormous dinosaur skeleton-made-out-of-printer-paper sort of\nthing is mind-blowing. And sure it\u2019s probably incredible to see all this action\non the real mountain in the movie, but what they accomplished onstage is super\nimpressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Williams\u2019 physical performance in Act II is even more\nimpressive, and I completely bought that I was watching an injured man trying to\nmove at all. I saw his pain and suffering and it felt real. The cast overall\nwas good, and any weakness I thought I recognized in Hampton in the beginning\nwas just my difficulty with the opening gambit, as in Act II she and everyone\nreally shine, even Richard (Patrick McNamee), the annoying guitar-playing dork,\nhitting the right notes for needed comic relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How the story unfolds is shocking and emotional and exciting\nand a surefire way to raise your blood pressure, and if you have anxiety you\u2019ll\ndef need to prepare yourself. But I mean all that in the best way. I still\ncan\u2019t believe this is a true story. And I still can\u2019t believe people would\nchoose to do things like this on their own volition. Please do not make me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The show is about 2 hours 20 minutes, with the first act\nending at our performance at 20:37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the Duke of Yorks, I recommend sitting in the circle,\nbecause that\u2019s ground level. I forgot and was in the stalls and the whole being\nbelow ground thing is no fun when you try to leave. Also, the Ladies bathroom\nis right next to the house right door of the circle (the same one you climb the\nstairs to if you\u2019re in the front stalls). For this show especially, you want to\nmake sure you have a clear view all the way up \u2013 do not sit in the back of the\nstalls. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s Theatre Thursday! Today\u2019s show is Touching the Void, playing at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in London until February 29. For as long as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n