Scenes tend to stand out for me rather than the whole play. I think for whole plays then two Stoppard plays - Arcadia, which I'm going to see again next week, and The Invention of Love which is one of his less well-known works but which was about A.E. Housman, one of my favourite poets.
There is an open air theatre in Cornwall called the Minack which is cut into the cliffside with the sea behind the stage and the location elevates almost any play. The scene I particularly remember is from Mary Stuart by Schiller and Elizabeth I has a monologue. The actress stood on the highest part of the stage, spotlights threw her shadow onto the fog behind and it was breathtaking.
When I moved to Oxfordshire, I was determined to see a performance at the Minack. Then, Covid hit. Then, we moved out of the country. I wish we'd been able to make it happen. Now, every time I visit the UK, it's in autumn/winter and...well, outdoor plays at that time of year, at least in the UK, would be a very, very bad idea.
We saw The Sound of Music at The Minack in the pouring rain. The line “You’d better shut the window, I think there’s a storm coming” was met with much merriment! It was an incredible experience but I’d love to go back in the sunshine.
Seeing Avenue Q on Broadway. My then girlfriend, now wife, graduated from grad school in the Northeast in 2004. I went out for her graduation. The day before we all went into the city. My wife loves theater and had spent 2 years going to plenty of shows. IIRC there was some disagreement about what to see. Her parents went and saw the Billy Joel show. My wife and I along with her sister decided on Avenue Q. I knew nothing about it. But I just remember we all were laughing so hard we were crying.
I wouldn't mind seeing it again to see how the humor as aged. It looks like there was a West End revival this year, maybe we'll see it out on tour in a couple years.
Speaking of Shakespeare in the Park, summer of 1989, production of Twelfth Night with: Michelle Pfiefer, Jeff Goldblum, Gregory Hines, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, John Amos, and Stephen Collins. That one blew my mind. (As did so many other productions there through my summers while in high school and college!)
I have a fun story about The Seagull that I don’t want to share here. Maybe I’ll email you!
Hands down, my favorite live theater experience had to be watching The Barber of Seville in Florence, Italy. It was my first ever time seeing an opera, and was spectacular!
Despite not understanding a word of it, I could not stop laughing. Such great physical comedy and tons of fourth wall breaks. During one of the opening scenes in the first act, with the main love interest of the show had been eyeing me the whole time and even brought me up on stage to dance with her. I was quite embarrassed because I didn’t have any socks on. They’d been soaked by the rain.
She led me back to my seat and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. :D
I saw a beautiful performance of Aida at the amphitheatre in Verona. The final act had some amazing thunder and lightning effects. Only when we were going back to our hotel in the hills did we realise the storm was real!
My first time experiencing opera was THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO in Salzburg, with the performers moving between tables where we were dining. That physical comedy, right there in your face, blew my mind. I've been an opera lover ever since!
So, in 2018, my brother and I traveled from Oakland and Philadelphia, respectively, to visit my sister, who lives at 145th and Riverside Drive in NYC. She left to travel to Europe for business, so it was just the two of us for a couple of days. We decided to go down to Times Square, to the TKTS kiosk, and to grab discounted tickets for whatever show might be available.
As we're standing in line, someone came around with flyers for a play doing its "critics review" matinee. (That's the last performance before the official opening.) It was a revival of Three Tall Women, written by Edward Albee. Starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalfe and Alison Pill. It was the first time in 23 years that Jackson had been on Broadway. Holy shit.
Suffice it to say that Jackson won the Tony for Best Actress, Metcalfe won for Best Featured Actress, and that Pill might have been better than both of them. Unforgettable.
I still have vivid memories of Michael Sheen playing a self-haunted and unquestionably mad Hamlet in a production at the Young Vic set in a 1970s mental hospital a few years back, though Andrew Scott's Hamlet contained a particularly beautiful beat where, instead of recoiling from the ghost of his father, he embraced him, which I still think about.
There was also a production of Hamlet by Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza where a group of young people with Down syndrome all got to play the Dane which turned into a revelatory essay on who gets to claim ownership of Shakespeare, who gets to speak those words. By the end of the performance half the audience were up and dancing. It was incredible.
Oh, and the bit in Jamie Lloyd's Cyrano where James McAvoy woos Roxanne by whispering into a microphone as they sit back to back was possibly the hottest thing I have ever seen on stage.
The first that sprang to mind (which must mean it made the strongest impression) was the West End production of Misery, adapted by Simon Moore and starring Bill Paterson and Sharon Gless. I see that was way back in, oh dear, 1993. I like the movie too, but the play has that visceral inescapability that you can only get from being in the same physical space as the actors. There was a nightmarish sequence when Annie withholds Paul's medication that's actually like going cold turkey, the play is far more brutal and shocking than the movie when it comes to the hobbling scene, and the ending is less cut-and-dried (always a good thing in my book).
I had no idea there was a play of it...and now I can't understand why this hasn't entered my awareness before. It seems so obvious. Stephen King didn't exactly write chamber plays, contained enough for that kind of thing, and yet MISERY almost seems conceived for that kind of adaptation.
I saw Christopher Walken, Blythe Danner and Sigourney Weaver in A Streetcar Named Desire, Williamstown Theater Festival. I was fortunate to live in an area where great theater came to us every summer (I also had a summer college gig as a costume assistant for Shakespeare & Company, so live theater has a special place in my heart).
I mentioned it last week (and I seem to be unable to leave Jaws alone in your comments section!) but I think The Shark Is Broken stands out for being so highly anticipated by myself and not disappointing in the slightest. It’s an incredible play and the performances of all three actors were outstanding. I loved everything about it.
I’d also mention Return to the Forbidden Planet. I love musicals and the use of classic songs in this one is brilliant. No big names, but brilliant performances from everyone. The musical numbers and acting were excellent and it was genuinely funny. Great use of Shakespeare for comic effect.
Speaking of which, I should also mention The Play That Goes Wrong. I have never laughed more in a theatre!
It’s basically a musical adaptation of the film Forbidden Planet. It uses 50s and 60s rock and roll music and borrows famous passages from Shakespeare in the script. It’s great entertainment and won the Olivier award for best new musical in 1989.
Seeing Christopher Plummer as Prospero at the Stratford Festival in 2010.
His performance was breathtaking and moving…literally. When he spoke softly, I felt myself being pulled forward in my chair to hear his every word. When he shouted, it felt like my body was being pushed back in my chair.
It was as if his words were a cord, pushing and pulling me.
There's a guy named Will Stutts who does one-man studio shows on famous Americans. I saw him play Tallulah Bankhead and Walt Whitman. Just extraordinary...charisma? I mean, one man in a small room for two hours, and everyone was rapt.
I don't get to go very often but I always enjoy the theatre when I do go, so I'll try not to just turn this into a list of plays I've seen!
Seeing Kinky Boots on the day my dad died made for an interesting existential... not crisis, exactly, but debate? Anyway, it starred Johannes from the UK Strictly Come Dancing cast and is such a great story I could forgive his slightly dodgy acting.
Alice's Adventures Underground was an interactive production in tunnels near a tube station (and is apparently coming back at some point: https://lesenfantsterribles.co.uk/shows/alices-adventures-underground-3/ ). I went once with family, and then raved about it to friends so went again and had a completely different path through the second time - highly recommended. I'll never forget the look on one woman's face. Our group were given badges, for plot reasons, but Bill the Lizard didn't have enough in his pocket so by the time he got to me he'd run out. Being a children's activity leader at the time, being put on the spot didn't bother me, so I said something like "oh no, does that mean I've been kicked out already?" Bill the Lizard found this quite funny, and gave me _two_ badges. Aforementioned woman looked aghast, like I'd broken all of the rules. She also didn't take a jam tart from the Knave of Hearts. _Interactive_ theatre love, gets boring when no-one plays along.
I've heard about and hoped to attend the ALLICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND...but wait. Wait, wait, wait. How does one end up at a musical on the day their father dies? I imagine there were very specific circumstances, but, as a person interested in human beings, who got on a plane to London for a Christmas holiday on the same day his mum died, what's the story here?
He died from alcoholism, effectively. It's a cruel disease, and by the end I'd already mourned my dad - he died a long time before his body did. Strange day.
Mine was a tiny Chekhov in Paris, not starry at all, seen on my first evening out after months arranged around milk and tiny socks. I remember the actor missing a line, the whole room holding its breath, and thinking, with embarrassing French seriousness, yes, this is why we still leave the house.
Alysse, as someone who has lived through several years of hell with my kids, I want to give you a hug. I hope you're enjoying your freedom. I know not what that is, but keep filling me with hope that I will again, too.
Not at all an opera person, but got into attending Santa Fe Opera, in part because it's all just such an experience. They do a great job of reminding you what's special about live even if the performance is not your thing.
Friends introduced us to Apprentice Scenes, where apprentices — in all departments, and they're not like high school kids trying it out, they're the best of the next generation — perform their own selections.
Also it's a speed run through opera. Two acts of 4–6 10-ish minutes of scene selections of whatever they choose, staged however (generally minimally and creative). Please hold applause until the end of a scene. Whole thing 90 minutes including intermission (well, plus tailgating).
2023. A pretty straightforward selection of… what is it, Gianni Schicchi? Reading the program, no idea, but I guess they're having fun with pretty period appropriate costuming. Big cast for one of these, and they're good.
And then, oh, yeah, the soprano (Lydia Grindatto) gets to "O mio babbino caro," which even I've heard of.
You can feel the change in the audience. Stunned. She ends. There's a moment of dead silence, then the place erupts into a spontaneous standing ovation.
Scenes tend to stand out for me rather than the whole play. I think for whole plays then two Stoppard plays - Arcadia, which I'm going to see again next week, and The Invention of Love which is one of his less well-known works but which was about A.E. Housman, one of my favourite poets.
There is an open air theatre in Cornwall called the Minack which is cut into the cliffside with the sea behind the stage and the location elevates almost any play. The scene I particularly remember is from Mary Stuart by Schiller and Elizabeth I has a monologue. The actress stood on the highest part of the stage, spotlights threw her shadow onto the fog behind and it was breathtaking.
When I moved to Oxfordshire, I was determined to see a performance at the Minack. Then, Covid hit. Then, we moved out of the country. I wish we'd been able to make it happen. Now, every time I visit the UK, it's in autumn/winter and...well, outdoor plays at that time of year, at least in the UK, would be a very, very bad idea.
I saw the Magician's Apprentice at the Minack! Gorgeous. Oh so cold.
We saw The Sound of Music at The Minack in the pouring rain. The line “You’d better shut the window, I think there’s a storm coming” was met with much merriment! It was an incredible experience but I’d love to go back in the sunshine.
This sounds magical!
I can imagine!
You can always tell the locals at the Minack by the amounts of clothing they have 😁
Seeing Avenue Q on Broadway. My then girlfriend, now wife, graduated from grad school in the Northeast in 2004. I went out for her graduation. The day before we all went into the city. My wife loves theater and had spent 2 years going to plenty of shows. IIRC there was some disagreement about what to see. Her parents went and saw the Billy Joel show. My wife and I along with her sister decided on Avenue Q. I knew nothing about it. But I just remember we all were laughing so hard we were crying.
I wouldn't mind seeing it again to see how the humor as aged. It looks like there was a West End revival this year, maybe we'll see it out on tour in a couple years.
I think seeing musicals cold is such a great way to experience them. No expectations. Nothing but surprise. I wouldn't see a play that way, though.
Speaking of Shakespeare in the Park, summer of 1989, production of Twelfth Night with: Michelle Pfiefer, Jeff Goldblum, Gregory Hines, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, John Amos, and Stephen Collins. That one blew my mind. (As did so many other productions there through my summers while in high school and college!)
I have a fun story about The Seagull that I don’t want to share here. Maybe I’ll email you!
That is one hell of a weird, but brilliant cast. I would've loved to see that!
Hands down, my favorite live theater experience had to be watching The Barber of Seville in Florence, Italy. It was my first ever time seeing an opera, and was spectacular!
Despite not understanding a word of it, I could not stop laughing. Such great physical comedy and tons of fourth wall breaks. During one of the opening scenes in the first act, with the main love interest of the show had been eyeing me the whole time and even brought me up on stage to dance with her. I was quite embarrassed because I didn’t have any socks on. They’d been soaked by the rain.
She led me back to my seat and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. :D
Pretty sweet!!
I saw a beautiful performance of Aida at the amphitheatre in Verona. The final act had some amazing thunder and lightning effects. Only when we were going back to our hotel in the hills did we realise the storm was real!
My first time experiencing opera was THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO in Salzburg, with the performers moving between tables where we were dining. That physical comedy, right there in your face, blew my mind. I've been an opera lover ever since!
So, in 2018, my brother and I traveled from Oakland and Philadelphia, respectively, to visit my sister, who lives at 145th and Riverside Drive in NYC. She left to travel to Europe for business, so it was just the two of us for a couple of days. We decided to go down to Times Square, to the TKTS kiosk, and to grab discounted tickets for whatever show might be available.
As we're standing in line, someone came around with flyers for a play doing its "critics review" matinee. (That's the last performance before the official opening.) It was a revival of Three Tall Women, written by Edward Albee. Starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalfe and Alison Pill. It was the first time in 23 years that Jackson had been on Broadway. Holy shit.
Suffice it to say that Jackson won the Tony for Best Actress, Metcalfe won for Best Featured Actress, and that Pill might have been better than both of them. Unforgettable.
That sounds amazing!
I still have vivid memories of Michael Sheen playing a self-haunted and unquestionably mad Hamlet in a production at the Young Vic set in a 1970s mental hospital a few years back, though Andrew Scott's Hamlet contained a particularly beautiful beat where, instead of recoiling from the ghost of his father, he embraced him, which I still think about.
There was also a production of Hamlet by Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza where a group of young people with Down syndrome all got to play the Dane which turned into a revelatory essay on who gets to claim ownership of Shakespeare, who gets to speak those words. By the end of the performance half the audience were up and dancing. It was incredible.
Oh, and the bit in Jamie Lloyd's Cyrano where James McAvoy woos Roxanne by whispering into a microphone as they sit back to back was possibly the hottest thing I have ever seen on stage.
Natasah, I love HAMLET a lot and your experiences of it make me so jealous!
The first that sprang to mind (which must mean it made the strongest impression) was the West End production of Misery, adapted by Simon Moore and starring Bill Paterson and Sharon Gless. I see that was way back in, oh dear, 1993. I like the movie too, but the play has that visceral inescapability that you can only get from being in the same physical space as the actors. There was a nightmarish sequence when Annie withholds Paul's medication that's actually like going cold turkey, the play is far more brutal and shocking than the movie when it comes to the hobbling scene, and the ending is less cut-and-dried (always a good thing in my book).
I had no idea there was a play of it...and now I can't understand why this hasn't entered my awareness before. It seems so obvious. Stephen King didn't exactly write chamber plays, contained enough for that kind of thing, and yet MISERY almost seems conceived for that kind of adaptation.
I saw Christopher Walken, Blythe Danner and Sigourney Weaver in A Streetcar Named Desire, Williamstown Theater Festival. I was fortunate to live in an area where great theater came to us every summer (I also had a summer college gig as a costume assistant for Shakespeare & Company, so live theater has a special place in my heart).
HOLY SHIT!
I mentioned it last week (and I seem to be unable to leave Jaws alone in your comments section!) but I think The Shark Is Broken stands out for being so highly anticipated by myself and not disappointing in the slightest. It’s an incredible play and the performances of all three actors were outstanding. I loved everything about it.
Holy hell, look what's coming to Melbourne in October! https://sharkisbroken.com.au/
Oh, amazing!
I’d also mention Return to the Forbidden Planet. I love musicals and the use of classic songs in this one is brilliant. No big names, but brilliant performances from everyone. The musical numbers and acting were excellent and it was genuinely funny. Great use of Shakespeare for comic effect.
Speaking of which, I should also mention The Play That Goes Wrong. I have never laughed more in a theatre!
Is this a sequel to the TEMPEST-inspired sci-fi film?
It’s basically a musical adaptation of the film Forbidden Planet. It uses 50s and 60s rock and roll music and borrows famous passages from Shakespeare in the script. It’s great entertainment and won the Olivier award for best new musical in 1989.
I've never seen this play and this deeply disappoints me!
This one’s easy.
Seeing Christopher Plummer as Prospero at the Stratford Festival in 2010.
His performance was breathtaking and moving…literally. When he spoke softly, I felt myself being pulled forward in my chair to hear his every word. When he shouted, it felt like my body was being pushed back in my chair.
It was as if his words were a cord, pushing and pulling me.
I’ll never forget it.
Yeah, Plummer on stage is the kind of thing I would've driven ten hours to check out. Very jealous.
There's a guy named Will Stutts who does one-man studio shows on famous Americans. I saw him play Tallulah Bankhead and Walt Whitman. Just extraordinary...charisma? I mean, one man in a small room for two hours, and everyone was rapt.
That sounds mad!
I don't get to go very often but I always enjoy the theatre when I do go, so I'll try not to just turn this into a list of plays I've seen!
Seeing Kinky Boots on the day my dad died made for an interesting existential... not crisis, exactly, but debate? Anyway, it starred Johannes from the UK Strictly Come Dancing cast and is such a great story I could forgive his slightly dodgy acting.
Alice's Adventures Underground was an interactive production in tunnels near a tube station (and is apparently coming back at some point: https://lesenfantsterribles.co.uk/shows/alices-adventures-underground-3/ ). I went once with family, and then raved about it to friends so went again and had a completely different path through the second time - highly recommended. I'll never forget the look on one woman's face. Our group were given badges, for plot reasons, but Bill the Lizard didn't have enough in his pocket so by the time he got to me he'd run out. Being a children's activity leader at the time, being put on the spot didn't bother me, so I said something like "oh no, does that mean I've been kicked out already?" Bill the Lizard found this quite funny, and gave me _two_ badges. Aforementioned woman looked aghast, like I'd broken all of the rules. She also didn't take a jam tart from the Knave of Hearts. _Interactive_ theatre love, gets boring when no-one plays along.
I've heard about and hoped to attend the ALLICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND...but wait. Wait, wait, wait. How does one end up at a musical on the day their father dies? I imagine there were very specific circumstances, but, as a person interested in human beings, who got on a plane to London for a Christmas holiday on the same day his mum died, what's the story here?
He died from alcoholism, effectively. It's a cruel disease, and by the end I'd already mourned my dad - he died a long time before his body did. Strange day.
I'm sorry to hear it. I grew up surrounded by it. Thanks for sharing that with me.
Mine was a tiny Chekhov in Paris, not starry at all, seen on my first evening out after months arranged around milk and tiny socks. I remember the actor missing a line, the whole room holding its breath, and thinking, with embarrassing French seriousness, yes, this is why we still leave the house.
Alysse, as someone who has lived through several years of hell with my kids, I want to give you a hug. I hope you're enjoying your freedom. I know not what that is, but keep filling me with hope that I will again, too.
Not at all an opera person, but got into attending Santa Fe Opera, in part because it's all just such an experience. They do a great job of reminding you what's special about live even if the performance is not your thing.
Friends introduced us to Apprentice Scenes, where apprentices — in all departments, and they're not like high school kids trying it out, they're the best of the next generation — perform their own selections.
Also it's a speed run through opera. Two acts of 4–6 10-ish minutes of scene selections of whatever they choose, staged however (generally minimally and creative). Please hold applause until the end of a scene. Whole thing 90 minutes including intermission (well, plus tailgating).
2023. A pretty straightforward selection of… what is it, Gianni Schicchi? Reading the program, no idea, but I guess they're having fun with pretty period appropriate costuming. Big cast for one of these, and they're good.
And then, oh, yeah, the soprano (Lydia Grindatto) gets to "O mio babbino caro," which even I've heard of.
You can feel the change in the audience. Stunned. She ends. There's a moment of dead silence, then the place erupts into a spontaneous standing ovation.
That sounds...magical.
Sam Shepard’s FOOL FOR LOVE.
U have never been able to afford theatre, ut am a writer and also attended Emerson college plus UCUrvine. High regards, e