First reviews of 2017 - a mixed bag
Jan. 7th, 2017 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearLots of fun stuff to report already in 2017! It doesn't look like my plan to do fewer things is working out so far...
We had two very different theatre trips this week. Both were in small local theatres - Finsbury Park Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, respectively. Both had a small cast - only two actors for one and six for the other. Both were adaptations of source material I was already familiar with - a book and a film. Both were only 75 minutes long. Both were very creatively staged, and very well performed. And both were thoroughly enjoyed by the whole party. But, in terms of content and presentation, they were very different.
The first, on Wednesday, was a stage adaptation of The Screwtape Letters by C S Lewis. One actor played the part of Screwtape and essentially monologued for the entire length of the play, dictating the letters to his demon minion, a mute part played by the other actor. Both performances were extremely impressive. Screwtape had a commanding presence, a huge range of emotion, and a vast number of lines to deliver. The minion, on the other hand, provided comic relief and reflecting emotion in a performance that required tremendous physicality and a chameleon-like ability to take on different personae as the text demanded it. The staging, costuming and effects all combined to make what was basically one man reciting large chunks of the book both dramatic and visually engaging.
There was a Q&A with the guy who played Screwtape afterwards, and it turned out he had actually adapted the book for the stage, and has been performing the part for ten years. The discussion was fascinating to me - even I can't miss the religious themes in Lewis, but it hadn't occurred to me that the play might be designed to preach a spiritual message. The message that "you should work out what you want to do with your life and bloody well get on with achieving it" was quite clear, and rather apropos for me at the moment. But I was quite shocked when the actor said Screwtape was in no way a fun character to play and he found it difficult to access the qualities needed to play him. I think he's a really fun character, but then I suppose the spiritual consequences of his motivations aren't likely to impact on me as much as on those who have religious faith.
Anyway, I thought it was an excellent and highly enjoyable production, and was very glad we went.
The second play, which we went to last night, was a stage adaptation of the Studio Ghibli film, Kiki's Delivery Service, and it was positively delightful. All six of the actors performed with huge enthusiasm and flair, taking on so many different roles that we were all convinced there must have been more than six of them. The cat, in particular, was awesome - a little puppet manipulated to great effect by one of the actors, who imbued him with such character and emotion that I found it difficult to pay attention to anyone else when he was on stage. Kiki herself was bright and sparky, and carried the story very well. The other actors spun around her, changing costumes and hairstyles so quickly that it was hard to keep track, but gave the impression of a huge cast of characters, all of whom were distinctive and entertaining. The staging and effects were also brilliant, using light, lots of moving boxes, music and projections to provide the illusion of flight, train travel, busy streets and wild adventures. The whole thing was so exuberant, it carried me right along, and I lost myself completely in the lovely story. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but I was very impressed, and so pleased to have seen the show.
Yesterday, I finished both an audiobook and a text-based book.
The audiobook was Waistcoats and Weaponry, the third in Gail Carriger's Finishing School series. This continues to be very entertaining, with an appealing set of characters, an interesting world and lots of derring do. I love Sophronia as a protagonist - she's always ready to take action, no matter what the situation, and is hugely resourceful and cunning. It's a fun setting - Victorian steampunk with added vampires and werewolves, and several of the main characters are training to be secret agents at Madame Geraldine's floating school. Even the inevitable teenage love triangle didn't bother me that much, since it was presented in a way that explored issues of race, class, societal expectations and, most importantly, Sophronia's ambition to be an independent intelligence agent. My only criticism was that the ending was a bit abrupt and both plots got tidied up rather conveniently. I get the impression the author was aware of the issue, since she titled one of the last chapters "[Character] Ex Machina", and the character in question did rather swoop in at the last moment to solve everything. I know from my own writing that pointing out a weakness in the story doesn't do much to mitigate it! But this was still a very enjoyable listen, and I'm very much looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.
The text-based book was The Wreath, the first in Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter sequence. This is a Norwegian epic, published in 1920 but set in the 14th century, and follows Kristin throughout her childhood and adolescence as she faces various challenges relating to her place in the world. I found it very immersive, with a lot of rich detail about the society, landscape and attitudes of the people. None of the characters are drawn with a huge amount of depth to begin with, though they do develop some complexity later on and the story itself is very engaging. Kristin at first seems naive and impressionable, and I don't think she improves much as the book goes on. She causes an awful lot of trouble for her family by making very unwise choices relating to men. She is very easily led and doesn't seem to consider the consequences of her actions at all. There are a fair few rather appalling attitudes expressed in the book, particularly about sex and the role of women, but they're certainly accurate for the time when the story is set and Kristin does attempt to fight against them, though to varying degrees of success. I would have liked Kristin to take responsibility for her own actions a bit more earlier on, and perhaps make better choices once she started to fight for what she wanted. I can't say I wished her well by the end of the book, or thought that her immediate fate would be likely to make her happy, but I still really enjoyed reading the book and am quite keen to continue to the next volume.
We had two very different theatre trips this week. Both were in small local theatres - Finsbury Park Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, respectively. Both had a small cast - only two actors for one and six for the other. Both were adaptations of source material I was already familiar with - a book and a film. Both were only 75 minutes long. Both were very creatively staged, and very well performed. And both were thoroughly enjoyed by the whole party. But, in terms of content and presentation, they were very different.
The first, on Wednesday, was a stage adaptation of The Screwtape Letters by C S Lewis. One actor played the part of Screwtape and essentially monologued for the entire length of the play, dictating the letters to his demon minion, a mute part played by the other actor. Both performances were extremely impressive. Screwtape had a commanding presence, a huge range of emotion, and a vast number of lines to deliver. The minion, on the other hand, provided comic relief and reflecting emotion in a performance that required tremendous physicality and a chameleon-like ability to take on different personae as the text demanded it. The staging, costuming and effects all combined to make what was basically one man reciting large chunks of the book both dramatic and visually engaging.
There was a Q&A with the guy who played Screwtape afterwards, and it turned out he had actually adapted the book for the stage, and has been performing the part for ten years. The discussion was fascinating to me - even I can't miss the religious themes in Lewis, but it hadn't occurred to me that the play might be designed to preach a spiritual message. The message that "you should work out what you want to do with your life and bloody well get on with achieving it" was quite clear, and rather apropos for me at the moment. But I was quite shocked when the actor said Screwtape was in no way a fun character to play and he found it difficult to access the qualities needed to play him. I think he's a really fun character, but then I suppose the spiritual consequences of his motivations aren't likely to impact on me as much as on those who have religious faith.
Anyway, I thought it was an excellent and highly enjoyable production, and was very glad we went.
The second play, which we went to last night, was a stage adaptation of the Studio Ghibli film, Kiki's Delivery Service, and it was positively delightful. All six of the actors performed with huge enthusiasm and flair, taking on so many different roles that we were all convinced there must have been more than six of them. The cat, in particular, was awesome - a little puppet manipulated to great effect by one of the actors, who imbued him with such character and emotion that I found it difficult to pay attention to anyone else when he was on stage. Kiki herself was bright and sparky, and carried the story very well. The other actors spun around her, changing costumes and hairstyles so quickly that it was hard to keep track, but gave the impression of a huge cast of characters, all of whom were distinctive and entertaining. The staging and effects were also brilliant, using light, lots of moving boxes, music and projections to provide the illusion of flight, train travel, busy streets and wild adventures. The whole thing was so exuberant, it carried me right along, and I lost myself completely in the lovely story. I really didn't know what to expect going in, but I was very impressed, and so pleased to have seen the show.
Yesterday, I finished both an audiobook and a text-based book.
The audiobook was Waistcoats and Weaponry, the third in Gail Carriger's Finishing School series. This continues to be very entertaining, with an appealing set of characters, an interesting world and lots of derring do. I love Sophronia as a protagonist - she's always ready to take action, no matter what the situation, and is hugely resourceful and cunning. It's a fun setting - Victorian steampunk with added vampires and werewolves, and several of the main characters are training to be secret agents at Madame Geraldine's floating school. Even the inevitable teenage love triangle didn't bother me that much, since it was presented in a way that explored issues of race, class, societal expectations and, most importantly, Sophronia's ambition to be an independent intelligence agent. My only criticism was that the ending was a bit abrupt and both plots got tidied up rather conveniently. I get the impression the author was aware of the issue, since she titled one of the last chapters "[Character] Ex Machina", and the character in question did rather swoop in at the last moment to solve everything. I know from my own writing that pointing out a weakness in the story doesn't do much to mitigate it! But this was still a very enjoyable listen, and I'm very much looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.
The text-based book was The Wreath, the first in Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter sequence. This is a Norwegian epic, published in 1920 but set in the 14th century, and follows Kristin throughout her childhood and adolescence as she faces various challenges relating to her place in the world. I found it very immersive, with a lot of rich detail about the society, landscape and attitudes of the people. None of the characters are drawn with a huge amount of depth to begin with, though they do develop some complexity later on and the story itself is very engaging. Kristin at first seems naive and impressionable, and I don't think she improves much as the book goes on. She causes an awful lot of trouble for her family by making very unwise choices relating to men. She is very easily led and doesn't seem to consider the consequences of her actions at all. There are a fair few rather appalling attitudes expressed in the book, particularly about sex and the role of women, but they're certainly accurate for the time when the story is set and Kristin does attempt to fight against them, though to varying degrees of success. I would have liked Kristin to take responsibility for her own actions a bit more earlier on, and perhaps make better choices once she started to fight for what she wanted. I can't say I wished her well by the end of the book, or thought that her immediate fate would be likely to make her happy, but I still really enjoyed reading the book and am quite keen to continue to the next volume.
