I try to go to Bristol Old Vic on preview nights - all tickets are £10...so, if you get in quick enough, you can get a really good seat for a tenner! 

I think the point is to try the performance out for real, in front of an audience, so that any little tweeks can be done before the press turn up to review it - which is why the tickets are cheaper, and why I don't think there will be any official theatre press reviews until the end of the previews.... 

fifi wrote:

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I try to go to Bristol Old Vic on preview nights - all tickets are £10...so, if you get in quick enough, you can get a really good seat for a tenner! 

I think the point is to try the performance out for real, in front of an audience, so that any little tweeks can be done before the press turn up to review it - which is why the tickets are cheaper, and why I don't think there will be any official theatre press reviews until the end of the previews.... 

 

-- Edited by fifi on Friday 17th of January 2014 02:45:43 PM

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 As a former theater major and worker, this is spot on. Exactly right fifi

I'm with you on that whimsy.

This awesome photo posted by Dan O'Brien on his twitter page brings a smile! 

Has anyone out there has seen the play? we would love to hear from you!

And wishing all those going today (either the matinee or evening performance) a wonderful theatre experience.

Last night was absolutely fantastic.  I feel a bit reluctant to spoil some of it for those who are going - but, on the other hand, not everyone can...so basically, if you want to be surprised, then don't read!

The theatre is actually above a pub - handy! (and they do 20% off your bill if you order food and have got a theatre ticket (or confirmation) It was busy, and the tables were all reserved but luckily we found one that wasn't reserved until 7!)

After a quick bite to eat...and a drink....we headed up the stairs to the theatre to collect our tickets - you can also buy the book of the play - handed over our coats (it's pretty hot inside..and there is nowhere to put a coat!) and were given plastic overshoes to wear?! 

To say that it's an intimate space is something of an understatement!  And as the seats started to fill up I realised Dan O'Brien (the writer) was sitting right behind us!! 

Spoiler

There are two rows of seating either side of the performance space, with a 'screen' at either end onto which images are projected, a couple of inches of fake snow on the floor (hence the overshoes), and just 2 chairs for a set, which were well used props during the performance...Damien really does have a talent with a chair!  And there was a lot....oh yes, a lot of eye contact with the audience! The audience are so close to the actors.....it's the first time I've ever been worried that the performers might trip over my feet during a performance! - and I think Laura almost got hit by a chair!

The play has no story as such....the title is taken from the prizewinning photo which Paul Watson took in 1993 of an American soldier's dead body being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after his helicopter was shot down.  It is an exploration of the relationship which developed between the two men when Dan contacted him about the possibility of writing a play after hearing Paul say in an interview that he had heard the voice of the dead American speak to him....Dan is himself fascinated by the notion of 'hauntings'.  Eventually they meet....in the arctic...in winter.  I knew all of this before I went to see it....what I hadn't anticipated was the revelations of Dan's private life - made even more powerful by the fact that he was sitting right behind us!  I couldn't help but wonder what it was like for Damien playing the part of the man who wrote those words about himself, with him actually sitting watching....

The performance was simply staged, with just the two chairs, no costume changes (what you've seen in the pic of him with Dan, is what he wears), and a series of projected images.  It was compelling, thought provoking and sometimes uncomfortable, although there were also some laugh out loud moments.  At times the pace was frenetic, with the dialogue alternating between the actors regardless of which character's speaking - disorientating, but somehow not confusing - and at times I really didn't know where to look - amazing considering the performance space contained only 2 chairs and 2 actors!  Oh yes....and Damien and William are both totally comfortable slipping between accents.......they were both simply amazing - it was all so slick it's hard to believe that it was only the 3rd performance!!  It must be absolutely exhausting to perform.....

It really is wonderful to watch a play where the script, the production and the performances are all perfect....but I really cannot think of a single thing to critisize.....it was simply amazing...and I genuinely can't stop thinking about it!  I'm possibly more excited about going to see it a second time than I was the first!!

When it finished we chatted with Dan for a while....who was lovely, and very aware of the fact that Damien has 'admirers' (as he wrote in my book! - think he's a bit of a fan himself!!!) and then wandered outside where we met William Gaminara - also a lovely man who was only too happy to chat, give autographs, and pose for pics.  It is a happy coincidence that Damien was in the pub, as that was where we were heading.....and it was just lovely of him to come over and chat before he left - although the pub was so noisy that it was pretty difficult to hear anything.  I did hear him say that he loved the lemon tree........

Apparently press night is on Monday - so I anticipate there will be a lot of reviews after that....

Thank you for sharing fifi and i'm so happy that you enjoyed it so much. It sounds like something i would enjoy and i'm gutted because i'm actually in London in two weeks time and my sister has offered to keep my daughter amused for a couple of hours if i wanted to get a ticket and go and see it (matinee of course) but i do not know London at all and not confident enough to travel across London by myself (but...given that part of the day we have planned includes a visit to the V&A museum, i think the V&A has just won, i've always wanted to visit it so do not want to pass that up, as well as spend the day in London with my daughter) I digress... but reading some tweets since it opened and they've all been incredibly positive.

One day i will get to see Damien on stage, one day!!

domino wrote:

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The performance space sounds like it heightened the intensity of the play, such a stripped back intimate performance coming at you so close up must make it more experiential and immersive.

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 Absolutely.  Not only does it make it more immersive, but, at times it's also quite uncomfortable - it feels a bit as though you are actually intruding on these private, personal conversations and thoughts.  Although I don't know how much that feeling was compounded by the fact that I knew Dan was sitting behind us (I actually recognised him as soon as I saw him having watched some of the youtube vids)  Where we were at the front sometimes it almost felt as though you were being drawn into the performance space...and it did feel like a very enclosed space...almost like sitting in a cave (somebody tweeted something about an igloo - wonder if that's what they were refering to?!) the picture projections counterpointed the feeling of introspection it felt like looking out of a window - a real contrast between the 'personal space' and the outside world...I guess that's, in part, what the trailer's about.

There isn't a list of characters in the book.....and I'm not going to go through and count how many there are - but I could believe there are 30 characters.  Most of them don't really exist as characters as such.....they are mostly voices - I'm sure they are all distinct characters.....real people I would imagine, but within the context of the play they are like a stream of consciousness.  Or at least that was how it felt to me! 

I cannot even begin to imagine how Damien and William can have possibly learned the script....a phenominal challenge in itself - let alone with the accents.  The accents were mostly American, Canadian (really sorry....but I wouldn't really be able to tell the difference....I'm British  - sorry!!) Somali, a South African, a couple of Inuits, ummm...Mother Theresa!  I guess the point is they slipped, or flipped, from voice to voice without a flicker - regardless of accent.  I can only really say that at no time did Damien sound Irish,....or at least not that I noticed - although at one point Paul did say to Dan 'you really are Irish, aren't you?' lol!

I'm looking forward to reading it myself....I know that reading a play is never the same as seeing it but I suspect that this may even be quite difficult to follow in text form.  It's a real performance piece....and they had nothing to fall back on - there was literally just the two of them, two chairs and some pictures on the wall (which, incidentally, were unbelieveably well synchronised - at times they literally changed at the click of the fingers), but I suspect that the writing is incredibly clever...to be able to switch the voices over - sometimes one even finishes off the other ones sentences, well.....I'm still not quite sure how it could possibly have made so much sense.