LaCageFans: THE HISTORY BOYS Review — Page 2

pattifan2, please tell me you preferred the touring Posner to the original, though.

You Americans should be delighted you're getting the original cast, although I'm with joshy; the UK touring Posner was better than the original, and that you're getting the play. Although I do think that because there seems to be so much hype over it, some people will go in expecting too much and be disappointed (I know this happened with all the hype when it was in the UK).

I hope it does well, the boys (and everyone involved in it) deserve that.

-Liz

I'm never a fan of "Play A vs. Play B" arguments because comparisons between plays are so often attempts to compare apples and oranges. But I do think, in terms of the comparison with Rabbit Hole, that it's important to note that Bennett's aims in HISTORY BOYS are very different from those of RABBIT HOLE.

RABBIT HOLE, to my mind, is almost entirely an exploration of emotional states and emotional insights -- it's a play about "the inner person" and about how people function in relationships, and the truths it seeks to offer the audience are emotional truths.

HISTORY BOYS, on the other hand, is about the relation of the private and the public -- and about about the philosophical rejection of the idea that there are no real truths, only different ways of looking at things. It's essential in Bennett's play that the teacher who believes in exam-passing and examiner-pleasing, who can advise a Jewish student to say "provocative" things -- things he does not believe to be true -- about the Holocaust for strictly self-serving motives, will someday become a man who can advise the government on how to persuade the public to support the abolition of jury trials. His belief that truth is a matter of words makes him utterly amoral both as a private person and as a player in the public realm. There's thus an intensely political underpinning to HISTORY BOYS: the characters' emotional realities aren't presented just so that we can empathize with them or identify with them; instead they're presented as part of a larger philosophical argument which is Bennett's real purpose. For Bennett education -- good education -- MATTERS, because the inner person is also a public person who at least has the potential to play a history-changing role in society.

This is why I suspect that HISTORY BOYS will be popular with people who enjoy "plays about ideas" as much as "plays about feelings" -- I've noticed similar splits of opinion in online discussions of plays by Richard Greenberg, another playwright whose characters' emotional states always serve the working out of his central philosophical preoccupations rather than serve as an end in themselves. These plays are written by men who are passionate about ideas, and the effect of their plays derives from their success in making the audience feel as passionately about their ideas as they do.

Like I said at the beginning, apples and oranges.

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Updated On: 4/15/06 at 10:44 PM

For me, it lived up to the hype. I'm notorious for being all hyped up about one show a season and then when I see it I am utterly disappointed, or at least a bit let down. I can honestly say though that The History Boys (as the one play this season I could not wait to see) easily met and went beyond my hopes.

So don't worry, some of us Americans are utterly thrilled to have it here.

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But you preferred Rabbit Hole with it's American cast, since they made it easier for you to connect with the material? Is that what you mean?

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I think on some level a good piece of work transcends nationality.

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What a stupid review, more in love with your own verbiage than saying anything coherent about the play.

I saw this in London in September 2004 and bought the script, which I've read a few times. I just saw the Sunday matinee today.

The script is a gem, the performances by Richard Griffiths, Frances De La Tour and the boys exhilarating. The play deserves to be seen by everyone who likes good ensemble acting and witty, literate playwrighting.

This review, however, is kakka-doody. And that's an even more intelligent and witty response than this review deserves.

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1. "Emphathy"? Can't find that one in a dictionary. And I won't attempt to make sense of "dynamic emphathy."
2. La Cage consistently has a problem with spelling, grammar, and basic English syntax. He clearly spends a great deal of time writing these critiques, but then routinely comes up with phrases like "dynamic emphathy" or uses words or descriptive terms that he doesn't quite understand, apparently in order to try and sound impressive, but by misusing them, he calls into question the very opinions he's attempted to present.

Writers are craftmen and words are their tools, and without a solid vocabulary and a mastery over the basic rules of sentence construction and usage and grammar, it's impossible to take the content and ideas expressed very seriously.

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Its a featured role. One that she delivers with some deadpan and subtlety. Its also the only female role on stage.

Whilst she is terrific as always, I have seen the play without her and the character/dialogue stand up without her just fine.

Just seen your post, Joshy. Yep, I think touring Posner had the edge and the voice actually. Didn't think touring Dakin was as good as the original, though. Not nearly as charismatic as he should be.

And picking up on the point mrkringas made about De La Tour, I agree that the role and the dialogue do stand up, I think De La Tour was so much stronger. She spits out those lines like bullets.

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Is this review stolen too?