Barbican Theatre
Date: 15 January (Wednesday), 7:15pm
Seats: Stalls G31-36
(Seen with my family - Mum, Dad, David and Richard!)
Notes: I had suggested to my family that we see a show when they were in town. My mum did some research and found this RSC production which was in the Barbican during the winter this year. She suggested either As You Like It, or Measure for Measure. I chose the former as I knew it was a comedy. I had seen it in a previous summer at the Globe and enjoyed it, although ended up quite sore from the standing for 3 hours part. So it was nice to be able to see the show sitting down!
This production was quite different to the Globe production. The casting was much less gender blind, which I actually think served to help us to understand it better. There was only one role which was cast opposite the original gender to create a pairing of two females (Phoebe and Silvia compared to Phoebe and Silvius), and I think it worked so well that I would never have known, even from the text, that that had been changed. There is even an original line in the text for that character which seems to refer to love as being from 'a woman' when the character is a man that really makes it work.
There were two things that stood out to me about this production. The first was the attitude. The whole show, while obviously still using Shakespeare's original language, was performed and phrased in such a way that it felt a lot more modern. It was really easy to understand the meaning, even if you couldn't make out each word, because of their intonation, phrasing, the acting - they all conveyed the feeling of the line. The setting and costumes were also modern, making it feel like it had been written much more recently that the 16th century!
The main thing that was amazing about this show was the cast. The standouts for me were Antony Byrne (Duke Frederick/Duke Senior), Lucy Phelps (Rosalind) and Sophie Khan Levy (Celia). Antony Byrne played both Dukes and did so really well, it was like he was two different people! He had totally different mannerisms. The two leading ladies, Rosalind and Celia, were the real amazing stand outs in the show. Lucy Phelps played Rosalind and in the first act she was good. But I wasn't wowed. I really felt, however, that she grew into the role, and particularly when she was playing opposite Orlando as a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl. She was funny, and overly dramatic, and somehow also really realistic? Like, she overreacted just how you would in that situation, and it really reflected how ridiculous some of the play actually is.
And then there was Sophie Khan Levy. She was absolutely hysterical! Totally fun and dramatic, and really the star of the show for me. She really played it for laughs as well, with one moment being when another character arrived suddenly and her solution was to flip her skirts over her head and pretend to be a rock! The other character sat on her!!! She also spent quite a lot of the play on stage, basically watching the action and reacting to it. She had amazing faces of reaction and a lot of the time, I watched her more than the main action. Really, I must see her again in something.
Talking about this after with my family, with the elements of breaking the fourth wall they included, we decided it was really as close to a traditional Shakespearean performance as you could get to actual Shakespeare times! It was a really good show for my family as well - funny, but very British. Just what the trip needed.
This production was quite different to the Globe production. The casting was much less gender blind, which I actually think served to help us to understand it better. There was only one role which was cast opposite the original gender to create a pairing of two females (Phoebe and Silvia compared to Phoebe and Silvius), and I think it worked so well that I would never have known, even from the text, that that had been changed. There is even an original line in the text for that character which seems to refer to love as being from 'a woman' when the character is a man that really makes it work.
There were two things that stood out to me about this production. The first was the attitude. The whole show, while obviously still using Shakespeare's original language, was performed and phrased in such a way that it felt a lot more modern. It was really easy to understand the meaning, even if you couldn't make out each word, because of their intonation, phrasing, the acting - they all conveyed the feeling of the line. The setting and costumes were also modern, making it feel like it had been written much more recently that the 16th century!
The main thing that was amazing about this show was the cast. The standouts for me were Antony Byrne (Duke Frederick/Duke Senior), Lucy Phelps (Rosalind) and Sophie Khan Levy (Celia). Antony Byrne played both Dukes and did so really well, it was like he was two different people! He had totally different mannerisms. The two leading ladies, Rosalind and Celia, were the real amazing stand outs in the show. Lucy Phelps played Rosalind and in the first act she was good. But I wasn't wowed. I really felt, however, that she grew into the role, and particularly when she was playing opposite Orlando as a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl. She was funny, and overly dramatic, and somehow also really realistic? Like, she overreacted just how you would in that situation, and it really reflected how ridiculous some of the play actually is.
And then there was Sophie Khan Levy. She was absolutely hysterical! Totally fun and dramatic, and really the star of the show for me. She really played it for laughs as well, with one moment being when another character arrived suddenly and her solution was to flip her skirts over her head and pretend to be a rock! The other character sat on her!!! She also spent quite a lot of the play on stage, basically watching the action and reacting to it. She had amazing faces of reaction and a lot of the time, I watched her more than the main action. Really, I must see her again in something.
Talking about this after with my family, with the elements of breaking the fourth wall they included, we decided it was really as close to a traditional Shakespearean performance as you could get to actual Shakespeare times! It was a really good show for my family as well - funny, but very British. Just what the trip needed.
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