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<title>Bruce Arnold Theatre Criticism</title><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/index.html</link><description>Bruce Arnold Theatre Criticism</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2009 Bruce Arnold</dc:rights><dc:date>2010-07-22T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Wed, 4 Feb 2009 10:41:01 +0000</lastBuildDate><item><title>Review: Death of a Salesman</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2010-07-22T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/death-of-a-salesman.php#unique-entry-id-20</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/death-of-a-salesman.php#unique-entry-id-20</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Of Polish-Jewish immigrant stock, Miller spent his first impressionable 14 years watching the dream develop only to see the Wall Street Crash turn it into a nightmare, destroying family confidence and giving him the underlying theme in his writing.


...His morality is based on being 'well-liked', a corrupting objective that leads to the tragic heart of the story, his son Biff's discovery that his father is a fraud. 

...I have rarely seen, in any theatrical production, so good an integration of all the players, with possibly one exception -- the wanderings in the auditorium of Uncle Ben, the only family member who survives the nightmare. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Gate Theatre</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2010-03-04T09:00:00+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/liaisons.php#unique-entry-id-19</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/liaisons.php#unique-entry-id-19</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Putting on a modern stage adaptation of an eighteenth-century novel, also made into a film, is high-risk strategy, made more intense by the epistolary style of Choderlos Laclos&rsquo; original, an approach to fiction made famous by the English novelist, Samuel Richardson. 

...Superficially balanced and evenly-paced, there is a disparity between the natural sensitivity of Nick Dunning&rsquo;s acting of one of the two leading roles, that of the Vicomte de Valmont, and his partner in crime, La Marquise de Merteuil, played with less assurance by Fiona Bell.  

...Unfortunately, fated to give her heart away under intense and dishonest pressure from the play&rsquo;s villain, Dunning&rsquo;s Valmont, she does so in sequences of emotional change that are slow and then rushed. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: A Christmas Carol</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-12-03T09:00:00+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/christmas-carol.php#unique-entry-id-18</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/christmas-carol.php#unique-entry-id-18</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[But the music is the best and most familiar we know at this time of year, the talk takes us inexorably towards a happy climax, and at the end the stage is almost too crowded with Alan Stanford's huge assembled cast of actors and actresses giving of their best.


Stephen Brennan, as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and To Come, is a sobersides in white at first, then a completely over-the-top Father Christmas, as gaily 'camp' as it is possible to be, then ending as the dark spectre pointing out Scrooge's tomb to him and changing his heart for ever.


...His exclusion of the world from his lonely life, inviting in the ghosts of Jacob Marley and of Christmas, who will change him, is well-presented, and his treatment of Bob Cratchit, played by Michael James Ford -- humbly certain of his place, despite the horrible threats that surround his threadbare life and are redeemed by family love -- is a moving tussle that brings tears to the eyes as Tiny Tim is saved. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Challenges of complex play are met with mixed success</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-06-26T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/challenges-three-sisters.php#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/challenges-three-sisters.php#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[There is one outstanding performance -- that of Eamon Morrissey as Dr Chebutykin, the entirely useless army doctor, a classic Chekov creation, who has forgotten his training but has a wonderful grasp on human frailty and a loving sympathy for the sisters, particularly the youngest and most tragic, Irina.


...Although it is an unforgettable performance, it laid bare shortcomings in the other performances and ultimately the production's failure to meet the director's exacting attempt at true Chekov.


...Justine Mitchell, Emily Taaffe and Derbhle Crotty wrestle with the three central parts, at times with considerable success, but essentially not giving the kind of coherence that the end of the play demands so that their curtain speech seemed slightly false. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Witty tale of corruption sparkles with some flashes of brilliance</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-08-16T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/wilde-play.php#unique-entry-id-16</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/wilde-play.php#unique-entry-id-16</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[One is the play of aphorism -- where we jump from one glittering joke to another, as though a frisbee is being thrown with deadly accuracy from one actor to another -- and the drama is held up by the richly earned laughter of the audience. 

...Derbhle Crotty is a bit too brassy to have got into the Grosvenor Square house of the hero; even more so of his frosty, demanding wife, a difficult role played with dedicated care by Natalie Radmall-Quirke.   But the power and thrust given to this "action" part of the play by director Neil Bartlett more than sustains shortages of subtlety or charm in Wilde's unique penetration of the English character.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Pinter at his best with a dark and brilliant comedy</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>0008-08-26T09:00:21-00:25</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/pinter-no-man.php#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/pinter-no-man.php#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Spooner, poorly dressed, has not been successful in the world's terms, but is a literary figure, editor of a poetry magazine -- a classic loss-maker, if ever the world made such a sure-fire emblem of failure -- and has a beautiful command of language.


...Hirst brings Spooner back to his Hampstead house with its bar and its library, and that is where begins one of the funniest and most accomplished performances of a drunk, by Michael Gambon, that I have ever seen.


...Harold Pinter's skill in creating floods of drama in one mood, represented in this relationship by the explorations of the past, and then cutting them dead and moving to another mood or atmosphere, is superbly represented by these two 'older generation' figures.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Shaw inspires in a terrible world</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-10-06T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/happy-days-shaw.php#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/happy-days-shaw.php#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In the circumstances, claiming this play is about happiness, marriage and love, seems to stretch a point, yet Fiona Shaw, in a magical and mercurial performance, does just that. 

...Within this restricted view of life Winnie is electrifyingly joyful and positive, her days made happy by a man who never touches her, looks at her and has questionable physical habits of nose blowing, evidence of which comes to us from behind the rocks.


Winnie ages; in Act Two she sinks up to her neck, her teeth go, yet she keeps on smiling, never giving up on her expectation of 'another happy day'.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Fast and faithful to Dickens&#x2c; but lacking zest</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>0008-12-03T09:00:21-00:25</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/dickens-zest.php#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/dickens-zest.php#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[There is, in this Dickens work, a problem -- that of Little Nell -- and Alan Stanford, who adapted as well as directing, wisely translates her death from the pathos of the original to a briefer, less prolonged demise. 

...The other problem for anyone translating this long novel to the stage is the insipid figure of Nell's grandfather, played apologetically by Nigel Anthony, and rightly so in view of his wilful betrayal of the young granddaughter he pretends to love.


...Conor McNeill makes a good comic part out of Quilp's 'Boy', and Kit, played by Michael Winder, is another of the well-realised characters who swirl about in this 'road movie' of a play, covering London, Stoke-on-Trent and places north.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: All My Sons</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-04-09T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/all-my-sons.php#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/all-my-sons.php#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The solid worth and determination of the girl, reinforced by inner knowledge of the full story of betrayal, is delivered in a way that enhances Miller's intentions beyond what I have experienced before. 

...Donna Dent and Mark O'Regan, as a neighbouring couple, the Baylisses, play out well the role of knowing witnesses as do Ronan Leahy and Mary Kelly, as the Lubeys, all of them representing a prying neighbourhood waiting for a truly tragic catharsis.


The single setting for the play, with its clapboard house and almost claustrophobic garden, seems closed in on the audience, dragging them into the heart of the play's action and holding them, in the last scene, quite spellbound. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: Present Laughter</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-07-17T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/present-laughter.php#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/present-laughter.php#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It has the good pace and timing one has come to expect from what is now a Gate Theatre speciality; the presentation of modern English comedy.


There is a brash, almost brutal side to Noel Coward and it comes out in the urbanely chilly character of the play's hero, Garry Essendine, played by Stephen Brennan. 

...There is some very camp playing from Michael James Ford as the seductress's hypocritical husband, and Peter Gaynor as a man in love with the same roving man-eater, his love a parody of the real thing.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: Tales of Ballycumber&#x2c; Abbey Theatre</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-10-09T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/tales-of-ballycumber.php#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/tales-of-ballycumber.php#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The next he's being bullied into stealing his uncle's car by his cousin Dennis, or he's meeting his wife for the first time as she drunkenly vomits on his college text books.


As these memories are brought to comically surreal and poignant life, we assemble a portrait of a man whose life has been crumbling for some time, possibly since the death of his parents when he was a small boy.


...For this culminating sequel to his 'Dragon's Trilogy', set in modern China, and centred on the loose love triangle between Pierre (Henri Chasse), a Quebecois art gallery owner in Shanghai, his alcoholic PR friend Claire (co-writer Marie Michaud), and struggling artist Xiao Ling (Tai Wei Foo), the audio-visuals help create the paradoxical background to life in the People's Republic.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: &#x27;Afterplay&#x27;</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-09-14T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/review-afterplay.php#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/review-afterplay.php#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Andrey, played by Niall Buggy in a way that makes you wonder how often he jumps at his own shadow, is the brother of the three sisters in the play of the same name.


...True to the two originals, Sonya is bewildered by the confusions of property, while Prozorov has ended -- as one might expect in trying to work out how characters get on after plays end -- on the verge of poverty, playing on the streets of Moscow as a musician.


...Instead, late on, as the reality of it all sinks in, Sonya hardens her heart and departs, leaving Andrey to shrug this off as best he can -- just as he shrugged off the devastation he brought down on the heads of his three sisters years before in the Chekov masterpiece.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Lifting our spirits in a summer of woe</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-07-25T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/lifting-our-spirits.php#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/lifting-our-spirits.php#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[He wrote in a preface to the revised edition: "For my own part I see no reason why the author of a play should not regard a first night's audience as a candid and judicious friend attending on behalf of the public at his last rehearsal." 

...This was a first instance of the spin-doctoring capabilities of Sheridan which were to prove highly successful at later stages in his career, notably when he handled, on behalf of his political colleagues -- Fox and Pitt -- difficult issues over the madness of King George II and the regency of the future King George IV.


...In the harsh world of today, with all that has changed in theatre, this is hard to achieve since Sheridan relied on stage types -- like his blustering Irishman -- and this led to a comedy of humours rather than a comedy of manners.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Bright Young Thing Still Sparkles</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2009-07-11T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/bright-young-thing.php#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/bright-young-thing.php#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Present Laughter is the closest one gets to autobiography in Noel Coward's plays -- though he did write two autobiographies as well, and countless comments about himself throughout his huge literary output -- yet in Garry Essendine, the hero of the play, he does come close to his own personality. 

...For the next six years, Coward was entertaining troops, travelling throughout Britain and in the Middle East, and dreaming of a time "when the silver lining will show through, the clouds will bugger off, the light of victory will illuminate out ageing faces, the Slough of Despond will be left behind, peace will reign again in this tortured world".


...One example will suffice, from this play, and it comes near the time when Essendine is confronted by the husband of a woman in the play called Joanna, who asks him whether or not he has had an affair with her. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Book Review: Synge- A Celebration</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-01-15T09:00:00+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Book-Review-Synge-A-Celebration.php#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Book-Review-Synge-A-Celebration.php#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It is loosely based on the Edward Stephens biography &ndash; as almost all Synge information has to be &ndash; but it does not clearly examine this huge central problem of why we will never get to the heart of the man save through his plays. ...  To&iacute;b&iacute;n writes: &lsquo;If a writer were in the business of murdering his family, then the Synges, with their sense of an exalted and lost heritage and a strict adherence to religious doctrine added to a very great dullness, would have been a godsend&rsquo;. 

...Two very substantial artists who truly understood him &ndash; Jack Yeats and George Moore &ndash; are not mentioned from one end of the book to the other, yet both wrote affectionately and with deep understanding of this man of genius. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Review: The Deep Blue Sea</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-04-17T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Review-The-Deep-Blue-Sea.php#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Review-The-Deep-Blue-Sea.php#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It works like a difficult jigsaw puzzle, each piece put into position in a breathtaking sequence of what, in their day, would have been called sordid, ordinary events. 

...She achieves this solely for the sake of Freddie Page, who does not respond, forgets her birthday, says all the wrong things and steadily sinks until he is out of his depth. ...  It is the dismal London of the early 1950s, wonderfully realised in a shabby-genteel setting in which Hester&rsquo;s despair pushes her towards a bungled suicide and then seems to offer a form of rescue. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Counter Revolutions in Theatre</title><dc:creator>website@brucearnold.ie</dc:creator><dc:subject>Theatre Archive</dc:subject><dc:date>2008-04-15T09:00:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Counter-Revolutions-in-Theatre.php#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.brucearnold.ie/pages/theatre_files/Counter-Revolutions-in-Theatre.php#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[And for fifty years it has stuck to him like a limpet, a kind of critical hammer with which modernists could beat him over the head and dismiss him and his careful, workmanlike craft as a dramatist, Removing him from serious recognition from then on. 

...Ingrid Craigie plays the central role of Hester Collyer, the wife of a reasonably distinguished and well-off judge, whom she deserts for a drunken and feckless test-pilot who was once in the RAF and has taken a speculative job in South America, where he is heading in an unconvincing way, his career clearly coming  to an end on account of drink. 

...The play was inspired by a personal tragedy in Rattigan&rsquo;s own life, the suicide of his lover, the actor Kenneth Morgan, who had left him in order to further his career and to escape the over-protective and possessive indulgence that cramped their relationship. ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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