Scottish Play: BAM vs. Broadway

We had front-row tickets for "Macbeth" on Broadway a few nights ago and in retrospect, it was a good thing I wasn't wearing white.

The front row is almost a splatter zone. So much blood is spilled on stage that six stagehands emerge at intermission to mop and wipe everything down before they start anew.

When I saw this same production at BAM a month ago, I was up high in the theater, and it was great fun seeing the differences at both. It was totally worth a second viewing.

So when I first wrote this up for NewYorkology, I told people not to read the reviews because they all had spolers about the staging, which I thought should be kept a surprise. (So if you still intend to see it, stop reading. Spoiler alert.)

So the thing I thought was most clever is that the play doesn't start at the beginning, instead you're a little ways in and a soldier on the battlefield is being tended by three nurses. He dies. And suddenly the nurses start singing their "Double, double toil and trouble" lines.

Now when they did this at BAM, it was as if the entire theater gasped in unison ralizing it was the weird sisters. Just remarkable. ... Though oddly at the Lyceum last week, it was met by amused laughter. (Approving laughter, I'm sure, but certainly not the shock it was to the BAM crowd.)

Up close, we could see a very subtle double sneer from Macbeth (Patrick Stewart) when the king awards the prince title to Malcolm.

The chairs at the banquet table in Macbeth's castle are sort of thread-bare canvas jobbers. But later when the scene switches to Malcolm in exile (in a nightclub in England?) the chairs are made of wood and velvet cushions. Likewise, all the military uniforms are sharp and stunning. And while Lady Macbeth's slinky 30s-era gowns looked very sexy from the mezzanne seat, up close you could see they were a little ill-fitted, and not quite cut on the bias. ... So I'm wondering if they meant to cast the Macbeths as a bit poorer and out of their league. Maybe the ambition was in part fueled by the desire for cash to keep up with the Jonses?

The front row seats made us too close to really get the full effect of the dramatic criss-cross light patterns as the actors came and left by the elevator at the back of the stage. Also, it seems to me that when Lady Macbeth goes to the sink in her freakout scene, the sink actually runs with blood rather than water. Again, we were too close in the front to see.

And then there's the teddy bear. The staging really makes you feel as though you're watching everyday people on stage -- they make their own sandwiches, talk with their mouths full, etc, and maybe happen to be holding a child's teddy bear while discussing matters of state. Though it was the second time watching the play that I noticed how many characters take a turn holding the little (Russian?) bear. I counted at least three - including Macduff and Lennox.

And another great thing we got with the Broadway version and not at BAM, the Playbill, which includes this in the who's who section:

JEFFREY ARCHER (Producer), member of the House of Lords, art collector, and amateur auctioneer, is a New York Times no. 1 bestselling author. He has written 14 novels, five sets of short stories, three plays, three prison diaries and two screenplays, selling more than 135 million copies worldwide. He ran for his country while at Oxford University and for charity in the London Marathon. His new book, A Prisoner of Birth, was published on March 4, 2008.

(Bold emphasis mine.)

And the other cool thing about the Broadway show ... we walked into the theater just two steps behind Angela Lansbury.

Labels: broadway

- posted by Amy @ 4/13/2008 02:46:00 PM

 
'Rock N Roll' on Broadway, Czech style

Oh my, here is some exceptionally good news. While I was away, Variety reported that Tom Stoppard's "Rock N Roll" will come to Broadway this fall.

Martin and I saw it in London last summer and loved, loved, loved it. It's brilliant beyond words, heartbreaking and should be mandatory viewing for all you Czechophiles who were caught up in the post-'89 East Euro revolutionary madness.

So seriously think about planning yourself a fall trip to NYC just to see this play.

Labels: broadway, czech, london, nyc

- posted by Amy @ 2/18/2007 07:14:00 AM

 
Exchanging ticket trick

OK, maybe this is an obvious trick to Broadway tickets, but I never actually had need to find out myself.

We had tickets to all three Stoppard plays, bought last summer after I freaked out over how great "Rock N Roll" was in London. Anyhow, it turns out that the husband will be out of town Feb. 22, our date for the third show. A call to Telecharge got me nowhere: No exchanges, sorry. Their advice was for me to go alone and try to sell the other $100 extra ticket out front before the show.

Should I go to the box office, I asked.

"Don't bother."

So I went to the box office and asked if I could change dates.

"Sure, when would you like to go?"

Two minutes later I had new tickets, no extra charge. And in a slightly better location than before. Nice.

Labels: broadway, nyc

- posted by Amy @ 2/14/2007 12:34:00 PM