To Be or Not To Be? October 5, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , trackbackFor once the full, outrageous, West End ticket price might just have been worth paying, not that we did. Rupert Goold’s contemporary adaptation of Pirandello’s classic ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ is captivating, intellectually challenging, aesthetically pleasing and long enough to warrant an interval.
As Noma Dumezweni’s Producer tries, and fails, to complete a docu-drama (or is that a drama documentary) about the euthanasia of a teenager, six people appear and demand that she tell their story instead. She is drawn further and further into their tale of incest and death and we spiral down into an intense consideration of the meaning of existence and the way in which theatre, or film, relates to reality. Ian McDiarmad is a creepy aged Father, guilty but continuing his incestuous relationship with his Step Daughter, played by Denise Gough.
The boundaries between reality and fiction unravel as the Producer runs behind the stage of Les Mis next door, before reappearing on the stage. Throughout, the play examines theatre as a more accurate portrayal of reality. The opera of the crucial moment when the Mother discovers the Father and Step Daughter in the act is far more dramatic and powerful than a realistic staging would be, hitting the audience with their trauma.
Hamlet is the play of the moment with even a free DVD of Zeferrelli’s 1980 version in my paper this morning. This production draws parallels with the play within a play and questioning of existence, using ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I‘ to make the point that there may be more passion in a play than in real life. It tells us that there is something of Hamlet in all of us, but starts to take it a little far when self-indulgently going on about the David Tennant and Jude Law versions crowding the London stage this winter.
In all an excellent production, although it runs on about 20 minutes too far at the end, almost as if they are trying to find their way back out of the thing and losing some of the impact in the process.
Six Characters in Search of An Author plays at the Gielgud until 8 November. There seem to be lots of cheap tickets at the TKT booth, partly perhaps because it is a challenging play rather than the normal, easy West-End musical. We had good view, despite being at the end of the sixth row of the stalls (F3-4)
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