The Smell Of The Greasepaint

[poliphilo]

I've never been much of a theatre goer. If I'm honest I find theatre disappointing. 

I wish I'd seen Olivier on stage. I really do. Maybe then I'd have understood why he's supposed to be so great. 

I saw Alec Guinness in one of Alan Bennett's plays about spies. It was awfully talky. I remember the verbal music and a wonderful twitchy, mini-nervous breakdown thing he did at the end.

I saw Antony Hopkins as Lear. Not very good. Hopkins admitted afterwards he really didn't understand what he was doing. The best thing in that production was Anna Massey's Goneril.

 Dorothy Tutin and Alec McCowen as Antony and Cleopatra. Both of them woefully miscast. That's the nearest I've come to falling asleep during a show.

Charlton Heston in the Caine Mutiny, Lauren Bacall in Sweet Bird of Youth:  just because you can fill the screen doesn't mean you can hold the stage.

Good experiences? David Warner's Hamlet- and a sexy, greenwoody As You Like It in Manchester with Janet McTeer as Rosalind.

Comments

[upasaka.livejournal.com]

My best theatre ever: Ian McKellan's one man show "Acting Shakespeare" in Princeton in the early 1980s. He was an awesome Lady Macbeth. That was long before any Americans had heard of him, and I only went because someone gave me tickets!

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I loved that show! I hadn't realized you'd seen it too!
I saw it at college in the late 80's.
It's the context for my "I-Died-on-Stage-With-Ian-McKellan" story!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never seen him on stage- but the film record of his Macbeth- with Judy Dench as Lady M- is my favourite version of the play.

[kinderheldin.livejournal.com]

I agree with you here on Macbeth, although I do find the Polanski film to be quite powerful in its take on Macbeth himself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've got Polanski's Macbeth on the shelf. It's one of the movies Ailz will be studying for her Shakespeare course next year. We really should sit down and watch it.

[kinderheldin.livejournal.com]

Polanski throws his slant on the situation and makes Macbeth unlikable from the beginning, which I can appreciate. (I never have understood what made Macbeth "good" in the sense of Aristotle's tragic hero). Lady Macbeth is docile, though -- nothing even close to Dame Judy.

I'm interested in hearing what you think when you see it.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I saw Ian McKellan in the original West End production of Bent. He was already brilliant and just got better.
I also saw Alan Howard in The Hollow Crown series done by Terry Hands. He was awesome.
Basically I agree with Poliphilio - I don't see what the fuss is all about Olivier.