BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Live Theater discussion. Experiences, Favorites, Opinions.

tonnaree · March 21, 2015 5:33 pm

I was enjoying the talk in the Hamlet thread about theater in general. To keep things on topic I thought it might be nice to have a specific place to talk about our experiances with live theater.

I have been a fan of live theater since grade school when we would have field trips to see shows.
My introduction to Shakespere was a field trip to see Taming of the Shrew. Loved it. Of course a lot of the more bawdy humor went over our heads but it was still a great experiance.

For many years I had the great pleasure of being a volunteer usher At The Fox Theatre in Atlanta. This is one of the most beloved venues in my city. What a fantastic thing being an usher was. Didn't get paid but I got to see hours and hours of live theater for FREE!!

One of my favorite shows from this time was seeing Richard Harris on his final tour in Camelot. In all honestly Harris was a bit too old for the part at that point, but I still treasure seeing him live in this iconic role.

I would love to hear theater stories from the rest of you.

SusiGo · March 21, 2015 6:12 pm

Brilliant idea for a thread.

One of my favourite theatre experiences was in 1984. I was a big fan of Peter O'Toole. So I went to London as a teenager (long before Internet times when you got all the information beforehand) and by chance saw that he was playing in Shaw's "Pygmalion". I spent part of my pocket money on a ticket and it was such a wonderful experience. Watching my hero from "Lawrence of Arabia" doing Henry Higgins live on the London stage.

I remember he had this quirk of taking off his shoes during the play. It was a running joke. I had once read that he always wore green socks for luck and because he was Irish and guess what he was wearing on that day as well?

Last edited by SusiGo (March 21, 2015 6:13 pm)

tonnaree · March 21, 2015 6:27 pm

That's wonderful Susi. My dream vacation would be a month of live theater. 2 weeks in New York and 2 weeks in London.

SusiGo · March 21, 2015 6:30 pm

Sounds very good. And there is another thing I like:

In a city near me they re-built the Globe theatre. Modern materials and electric lighting, but the architecture is quite similar.

Every summer they do a Shakespeare festival with companies from all over the world. We have been going there for about twenty years, it is a sort of tradition. You can also order picknick baskets and eat out in the open and it is a very familiar atmosphere. It also draws many young people.

This year I am going to watch "Love's Labour's Lost" in English and "The Taming of the Shrew" in German.

tonnaree · March 21, 2015 6:39 pm

Oh yes. I went to a week long Shakespeare festival in Utah once. Saw 2 different plays every day. What a little slice of heaven that was!

SolarSystem · March 21, 2015 7:10 pm

Wonderful idea for a thread, tonnaree!
I wish I had more time right now to join the conversation, but that'll have to wait until later. Let me just say that I love your experience with Peter O'Toole (and his socks), Susi. And that I would immediately join you in your theatre vacation, tonnaree.

I have loved the theatre since I was a teenager, and during my time at university I was lucky enough to spend half a year in Coventry. From there it only takes 45 minutes by bus to go to Stratford-upon-Avon - I'm sure I don't have to say anything else, right? I went to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre several times, saw several plays and expecially loved "Richard III". It was mesmerising.

Ah-chie · March 21, 2015 8:15 pm

I am a huge fan of live theatre. Some of my earliest memories are of my parents taking my sister and myself to drama festivals (and I actually reviewed all the plays and graded them during the week they were on - just for myself).

When I got older I did act in school plays a bit and then worked for a while as a general reporter with our local newspaper where I wrote reviews of plays.

Both my husband and myself are still enthusiastic theatre goers and have made it a practice to see a lot of theatre when we travel so I have been to plays in various location in Greece, France, Ireland (Abbey Theatre and Galaway Festival), England (London West End) San Francisco (Curran Theatre), LA (Geffen Playhouse), New York (Broadway houses and off Broadway), Chicago, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and many other Canadian cities (Stratford Festival and the Shaw Festival in NotL among others).

I love almost any type of dramatic presentation on stage - musicals, one person shows, Shakespearean, Shaw, light comedies, avant guarde, experimental ... anything at all.

I also had the experience of being part of a theatre troop, helping out as an assistant wardrobe mistress as a volunteer for a production. That was an eye-opener and lots of fun... but also lots of hard work.

I actually met David Hyde Pierce and Uta Hagen after a performance in LA's Geffen Playhouse and had a really wonderful experience. It was thrilling talking to him. We loved the play so much that we went to see it again the next night.

I saw DHP again in New York in his award winning role in Curtains. We didn't stay after the play but it was a great production and we really enjoyed it.

I wll have to think a bit to come up with some other stories but I am sure there are plenty in the many decades we have been going to plays. We are going to Australia this September and hope to see some theatre there.

-Val

Last edited by Ah-chie (March 21, 2015 8:15 pm)

SolarSystem · March 21, 2015 10:41 pm

In 2008 I had a fangirl experience, by the way. In a town in Germany called Recklinghausen we have the "Ruhrfestspiele" every year. That year Kevin Spacey was there with "Speed-the-Plow" by David Mamet - I have been a huge Kevin Spacey fan since "The Usual Suspects" and it was absolutely thrilling to see him (and Jeff Goldblum, by the way) on stage. It's a play for only three actors, so I got a lot of Kevin Spacey for my money. And although the play itself came across as entertaining but not all that memorable to me, it was a fantastic experience to finally see Kevin live on stage.
(The "Ruhrfestspiele" is a theatre festival, and the playhouse is surronded by a huge park where the audience can relax and have something to drink and eat before the performances. And of course Kevin walked his dog before his performance. I could have asked him for an autograph, but I didn't want to be obtrusive...)
So here is a picture I took during the final applause:

As for the theatre experience in general: I have discovered over the years that I'm a sucker for an impressive stage design. Of course the stage design shouldn't dominate a production, it shouldn't be more important than the actors and their performances. But having a stage which you can use for some 'special effects' can indeed give me goosebumps all over.
A couple of years ago we saw "Don Carlos" (Friedrich Schiller) in Dresden with great actors in an impressive production. And the beginning of the second act made me shiver like no other theatre experience before. Wonderful lighting, powerful music and then one of the main actors made his first appearance by standing on a part of the stage which was slowly accelerated from way down below. I actually grabbed my boyfriend's arm - and during the intermission he told me that this moment sent shivers down his spine as well.
That definitely is an experience I will never forget.

Last edited by SolarSystem (March 21, 2015 10:59 pm)

mrshouse · March 22, 2015 12:03 am

That sounds great, Solar!
I had some very nice theatre experiences when I studied in Vienna for two semesters. Students could approach the theaters and just ask for spare tickets half an hour before the show started. For students they were sold for fifty shillings, State Opera and Burgtheater a hundred. It was like going to the cinema. I got to see some really nice things, also in smaller houses like Volksoper or Theater in der Josefstadt. I loved it.
At that time I had a crush on the Austrian actor Tobias Moretti. He played at the Akademietheater in " Der Heiratsantrag" (The proposal) together with Anne Bennent ( her brother played in " Die Blechtrommel") and queued for about an hour and payed 500 Shillings. I got the very last ticket and was seated on an emergency seat. It was worth every single Groschen!

Last edited by mrshouse (March 22, 2015 12:12 am)

tonnaree · March 22, 2015 12:48 am

Very cool Solar!

ukaunz · March 22, 2015 2:11 am

I love live theatre, but I can rarely spend the money on it these days.

Back in 2005 when we were living in London, my husband and I walked all the way from our bedsit in Bayswater, through the great parks and the city, across the Thames and along the bank to Shakespeare's Globe. This would have taken us about an hour and a half. I don't remember if we planned it beforehand, but we decided to watch a play when we got there. The Tempest was showing at the time. We were always skint (not much money) so we bought the cheapest tickets available - "groundling" tickets, about £5 each. As groundlings, we had no seats: we stood in the open middle of the theatre in front of the stage for the whole play. My legs were ready to drop off by the end, and I think it may have rained a little, but it was a wonderful experience. I can't remember now, but I hope we took the tube home .

Apart from that, we also saw an Agatha Christie play or two (And Then There Were None and The Mousetrap, I think), maybe a couple of other plays I can't remember now, but mostly we saw live musicals like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon etc. which were a lot of fun (half price tickets aren't the best seats though, unfortunately!).

Now that I'm a mum, I've taken the kids to see a few plays like The Gruffalo's Child, and more recently Horrible Histories on stage which they enjoyed.

Val: Where in Australia are you headed?

Last edited by ukaunz (March 22, 2015 2:27 am)

Ah-chie · March 22, 2015 4:14 pm

We will be starting off in Sydney for a week, then out a few days in the Blue Mountains/Hunter Valley, then back to Sydney and off to Uluru, then to Cairns and finally on the Savannahlander Rail line to Forsayth for 3 days before flying back to Sydney and home (via LA and Toronto).

Hope to see some theatre in Sydney in our stay there.

-Val

ukaunz · March 22, 2015 8:06 pm

Wow, you're going to have an awesome time Val Uluru is magnificent.

We're going to the Blue Mountains at Easter, camping in the bush with our two children (I will have to do an Easter egg hunt for them) and doing some walks near Katoomba/Three Sisters, and also visiting Wentworth Falls. We did the same trip last year, it's so beautiful around there.

Ah-chie · March 22, 2015 10:38 pm

Your trip to The Three Sisters sounds wonderful as well. We are staying at Lilianfels so we will be insanely close to that particular formation when we go in September.

At Uluru we will be in a hotel that is made up of tents on stilts that look out directly at the Rock with nothing blocking the view. I can't wait!!!

Here's their site -
http://longitude131.com.au/

I looked up stage productions in Sydney that will be going on during our time there and found that Cate Blanchett will be starring in the Chekhov inspired The Present along with Richard Roxburgh. I am trying to get tickets (it seems like it is almost sold out already) today. I love Cat Blanchett so that would be a real bonus for this trip.

-Val

Ah-chie · March 30, 2015 9:50 pm

I just booked two tickets for us this coming September to see Cate Blanchett in The Present - a new play adaptation by Andrew Upton (her husband), inspired by Anton Chekov's Platonov. Directed by John Crowley and also starring Richard Roxburgh (who once played Sherlock Holmes in a 2002 Hound of the Baskervilles TV adaptation) it is being performed in the Sydney Theatre's Roslyn Packer Theatre on Walsh Bay.

I really love Cate Blanchett's work. Her performance in Blue Jasmine was truly beautiful to behold. Can't wait to see her on stage. Our trip to Australia was already exciting enough but now all Dan is talking about is seeing Cate Blanchett on stage!!!

-Val

nakahara · March 30, 2015 9:56 pm

Exciting! I adore Cate Blanchett! I hope you would have a great time watching her play.

Russell · March 31, 2015 3:19 am

Awesome!

tonnaree · March 31, 2015 12:35 pm

Galadrial!!!

Have you all heard of the play Love Letters? It is a wondeful little piece. It's the story of these two people who start out as friends and fall in love. It's told entirely through letters and is usually staged with just the two actors sitting at a table. It starts in grade school with them passing notes to each other. It's very sweet and touching.

Anyway, ever since I first saw Benedict doing Letters Live I have dreamed of him doing Love Letters. I mean he's simply perfect for it. Not sure who I'd cast beside him though. Suggestions?

Ah-chie · March 31, 2015 11:52 pm

I'll have to give this more thought but the first one that comes to mind is Anastasia Griffith. She's a classical trained (LAMADA) actress, about Ben's age, a fairly varied CV and is certainly seems like an intelligent person who could hold her own with him on stage. At the same time she isn't readily identifiable with most people so there wouldn't be too many preconceived ideas about her going in (like there would with more well known actresses perhaps).

-Val

This Is The Phantom Lady · April 9, 2015 1:43 pm

It's been too long since I've been to a live theater performance. I'd love to go more! (Hopefully I'll make up for it in August).

I saw a lot though when I was taking drama classes in school. I saw a big production of Faust with some big Danish actors. It was a pretty awesome experience and they managed to make such a heavy play 'edible'.

Even if I could have done without an actor from my childhood strutting onto stage naked and on hoofs. But it served a good point in the play...

I think the one memory that really stands out was when a traveling theater group from the UK came by our high school with their very lo-fi performance of Hamlet.

They were two guys and brought a small trunk with them and just uded the floor of the auditorium as their stage.
They delivered the play brilliantly. I have always loved Hamlet but the way they did it just inspired me so much.
My favourite scenes were the ones with Ophelia. Ophelia was 'played' by a red silk scarf that the man who played Hamlet toyed with. (same scarf was also stabbed by a wooden sword, the scarf now playing Polonius).
The thing is, it was believable. They connected with the audience (consisting of annoying teenage students...).

but I guess you should have been there...