Recently watched: National Theatre at Home

[troisoiseaux]

Watched Underdog: the Other Other Bronte (National Theatre, 2024), which was especially interesting to watch with osprey_archer's review in mind because I was coming at it from a completely different background: I love Jane Eyre, but I'm otherwise a total casual when it comes to the Brontës - it's only a slight exaggeration to say any preconception I had was just that one Hark! A Vagrant comic - and so I was perhaps more open to being sold on Underdog's take on the Brontë sisters and their respective literary legacies. It's also just a very fun play to watch! Great energy from the main actresses, clever use of a small ensemble cast playing both bit parts and Greek chorus and of weaving scenes from the Brontës' works into the narrative about their lives, and very fun effects. (I liked the one where, when the sisters send their first works off to publishers, they put their manuscripts into a basket that's pulled up out of view, only for the rejection letters to literally rain down.) What Osprey's review had not prepared me for was to be emotionally wrecked by the last ten minutes or so: as the Brontë siblings die, one by one, the actors hover on the edge of the stage, reacting to and commenting on Charlotte's narration; finally, Charlotte is all alone, and concerned about her family's literary legacy to the point of editing Emily's poems and suppressing Anne's Tenant of Wildfell Hall after their deaths, and she's so worried about legacy that she winds up trapped in a glass case in a museum with all the other polished things people remember out of context, and reader, I wept. (It doesn't end on a sad note - Anne helps her out of the museum box and everyone learns an important lesson about family or something - but that was the bit that's stuck with me.)

Watched As You Like It (National Theatre, 2016), which was charming. I've seen this play before, but even beyond the fact that particular production was a Beatles jukebox musical, it was cool to see what the two stagings did differently. The 2023 STC production tried to make it make sense by grounding it in a particular time (1960s) and place, while this production was a very vibes-based staging: for example, the 2023 one played Duke Frederick's court as a sleazy Vegas club with a wrestling show for entertainment/profit; this production also went the obvious WWE-style wrestling route for Orlando's fight with Charles the Wrestler, but set it inexplicably in the middle of an open-plan office, because why not. The set was very cool! When the action shifted from the court to the forest of Arden, the orderly rows of desks and chairs became a giant's mobile of furniture hanging from the ceiling. Celia stole the show in this one - with the melancholy Jaques as a close second, particularly for his dramatic "kill me now" interpretative dance during Amiens' song - but I was also surprised and delighted to recognize some of the actors in smaller roles: Fra Fee (one of the revolutionaries in 2012 Les Mis) as one of Duke Senior's courtiers-in-exile and Siobhán McSweeney (Sister Michael in Derry Girls) as the shepherdess Audrey (whose courtship by Touchstone is, I must say, much cuter when done as a duet of the Beatles' "When I'm 64").

Watched Present Laughter (Old Vic, 2019) with Andrew Scott as a flamboyant light comedy actor in the 1930s careening towards a mid-life crisis and a love triangle heptagon, which is in fact a great role for Scott, who does "guy trying to mask that he's achingly lonely" very well. (Interesting to watch this one after Vanya, since there's some similar... core to Scott's version of this character, Garry, and his Ivan.) This production genderswapped a couple of characters (and, presumably, some of the references to Garry's past flings?) to make it queerer: in the original, both Garry and his manager Morris have an affair with Joanna, the wife of Garry's producer Henry; here, Joanna is Joe and Henry is Helen (whose own extramarital flings, as referenced, are not genderswapped, and who is styled with shades of Dorothy Arzner).

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Audrey's original swain was particularly adorable, too! Ah well.

[osprey_archer]

I KNOW, I was like "Gosh I didn't remember Audrey having such a cute romance..." and then of course she didn't. Oh well, maybe Touchstone will die and Audrey can remarry.

[troisoiseaux]

I will say, I adored the Touchstone in the Beatles Jukebox Musical 1960s Hippie As You Like It I saw last year, because he was this flamboyant, funky little dude in platform heels. (In background of the first pic in this review— as you can see, he's getting dipped by Audrey rather than the other way around, which was very much their overall vibe.)

[osprey_archer]

The Touchstone/Audrey romance I think is one where you could mitigate the problems with the right Touchstone. He says things that make it sound like he really doesn't like her that much and intends to ditch her eventually, but he could say them in a way that implies that he's actually dead gone on her.