Broadway Abridged: Rock n' Roll- Page 2

[WickedBoy2]

Posted: 10/26/07 at 6:58am

I was assistant house manager at the Aldwych theatre in London when Tom Stoppards play 'Hapgood' opened in 1988. It stared the wonderful actress Felicity Kendal and she would gladly tell anyone who asked her that she simply didnt have a clue as to what she was performing each night! Each evening we used to loose around 50/60 in the intermission, leaving with total confussion written on thier faces! A very acquired taste. His plays never run more than 5 or 6 months in the West End despite the amazing publicity they always get and the box office is always huge.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:26am

Mallardo, I've read the play and your explanation is as good as any I could ever come up with. And agree with you about Jumpers -- no one I knew understood it, either in the orginal production or in the revival several years ago. And it was very long-winded.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:29am

It says something when the actors don't understand the play they're performing. When I spoke with John Gielgud after the original Tiny Alice, he admitted that he didn't have the foggiest notion of what the play was about.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 12:11pm

I honestly didn't think JUMPERS was all that hard to grasp when I saw the revival a few years back -- it's just that there's a LOT of ideas which are worthy of thought and discussion in it(and if you do a search I seem to remember writing a long essay about it on here at the time). I remember that the friend I attended with and I had a great time afterwards talking about the play's themes and marvelling how crystal clear David Leveaux's production was -- in particular Simon Russel Beale's rivetingly lucid lead performance -- making for such a fascinating and thought-provoking experience. Stoppard wasn't talking in code, though yes, you have to pay attention to what's being said perhaps a little more than you do at your average play becuase he's dealing with some rather deep philosophical concepts -- but they are ones that most of us have considered and discussed amongst ourselves in the past.

Stoppard's lead character is trying to write a speech about whether there are absolutes of good and evil in the universe, or is there just in reality a sort of moral relativism in which we all decide our own morality and rules of behavior based on individual circumstances. Can a society survive without accepted notions of right and wrong or will that lead to anarchy? Also, now that modern science has removed god from the center of the universe and substituted a kind of empiricism in which pure faith no longer is as important as that which can be proved to exist through sight, sound and observation, what's left to believe in or aspire to? What of romance? What of attempting the impossible?

It's an extraordinarily rich and beautiful piece of writing on Stoppard's part and rarely has a single piece of theatre ever challenged me to really think so much about the nature of mankind before.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 12:16pm

As for Tiny Alice, even Albee himself later all but confessed that even he wasn't sure to make of some it. I've found that Stoppard thankfully always does make sense though his work can be so dense that it can hard to "get" everything he's talking about at a single sitting.

Oh, here's that essay I wrote about JUMPERS. Again, the play really isn't all that hard to grasp, but there is A LOT of it to take in:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardname=bway&thread=159274#159355

[Tkt2Ride]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 3:39pm

I agree that Stoppard does put a lot of information and text into his Plays. Though I found it interesting to see the World through his thoughts and feelings. I saw, The Real Thing, in Toronto and really you can't even blow your nose if you don't want to lose track of where we are in the story. This one went forward and then back, making me want a score card just to remember how this all began or rather how it was in the end of the beginning. Who was with whom and why now? Very British in culture and luckily I had some background of this before coming to see this show.

It's a different approach but I felt he offered a very real view of relationships. His using Actress' and a Writer helped prove how he felt love could really be a moment or allusion, just like a part one writes or plays on a Stage. Very complicated.

It will be interesting to see how this show plays out in New York. The title intrigued me and I bet there will be a certain crowd who will be very surprised after about ten minutes of this show.

I enjoy history and remember how many times I have heard that Rock and Roll was the devil's music! The whole hysteria that was overblown and exaggerated to the utmost.

I don't mind Stoppard's writing. I wouldn't call it as much entertaining as it is interesting and thought provoking. I don't mind it some of the time and would probably see more of his work if given the opportunity to do so.

Thanks for the reviews though. I was very interested to see what Stoppard's direction in this show would be like.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 10/27/07 at 8:36pm

Actually, Rock n' Roll will open before rehearsals have started for The Grinch. O'Brien is re-staging the production in San Diego, not Broadway.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 10/28/07 at 2:43pm

Jack O'Brien didn't direct Rock 'n' Roll. Trevor Nunn did.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 10/31/07 at 11:23pm

I never said that he did direct it.

I was replying to: "You do realize that the Broadway production is being re-staged by Nunn, right (and O'Brien is not involved here -- he'll be busy re-staging THE GRINCH)? ".

He won't be busy re-staging The Grinch when Rock n Roll is in rehearsal/previews.