While on holiday in London and Ireland, we saw 16 plays. Now having some time to reflect on them, I am going to spend a little time writing up thoughts about them; mini-reviews, I suppose. If you are thinking of seeing the shows I write about, be warned there may be spoilers.
Theatre of Blood
Lyttelton Theatre at The National
Improbable Theatre
The Hanging Man. While interesting, Theatre of Blood was not really in the same league as The Hanging Man, which remains one of my favorite shows of all time.
When we entered the theatre, we saw a burnt-out proscenium with a torn red velvet curtain. This is not, as David, our fearless leader, was quick to point out, the usual look of the Lyttelton, but rather the set upon which the gruesome spectacle was to be performed.
In summary: a hammy old-time actor decides to revenge himself on his harshest critics by drawing each of them into a performance which culminate, of course, in violent death of the unwitting critic. Imagine Merchant of Venice where Shylock gets his pound of flesh or Titus Andronicus where the pies are made of poodles. The play is based on a shlocky old horror flick starring Vincent Price and Dianna Rigg.
It is a blood-bath. They actually show the torn-open ribs of one of the critics as Lionheart, the vengeful actor, rips his heart out, one of the many times I had to look away. But somehow, I always end up looking back.
This show is interesting, but a little lightweight. And it suffers from what all plays with actors playing bad actors do: it is painful to watch bad acting, particularly when it is so well done.
I think what ultimately disappointed me was that although I can’t be certain, never having seen the original film, I don’t think they adapted it very aggressively. It really feels like a staged version of a B-grade horror flick. It has a "message" about the intellectuals taking theatre away from the actor but I am not convinced that is really the point. Mostly it was about making pasties out of poodles and killing people with spears.
All that said, it is worth seeing. It is certainly an exercise in well-executed technical theatre and the cast is uniformly good. No surprise since it is led by Jim Broadbent. Knowing what I know about Improbable, I just think they could have done more with it.
The question of whether theatre has become over-intellectualized is an interesting one and I won’t say that is isn’t successfully addressed in the show, but I do think, in retrospect that the ideas are a bit overshadowed by the spectacle. But then again, that’s OK.
Recommended: If for no other reason than because you aren’t going to get a chance to see something like this again.
yesterday. He was truly one of the greats. I can’t tell you how deeply I wish I had seen him on stage, but I feel privileged to have been able to see his film work. 
