Over two weeks since I blogged, and even social media interaction has been low in that time. I’ve been focussing on a couple of domestic and business projects, though distractions mean even those haven’t been as productive as they could have been. Above all else, I have one room to finish decorating before Christmas!
Saw Don DeLillo’s Love Lies Bleeding last weekend – great cast, great performances and a great staging in a very-old-and-in-need-of-a-little-TLC theatre of The Print Room at The Coronet in Notting Hill Gate. Staging involved a large part of the auditorium being taken over by a movable board-walk and sandy terrain extending in front and around the stage. Also, with a “Pepper’s Ghost” glass screen in front of a separate elevated stage to the rear, so that all aspects of the end-of-life memories, death and ghosts could be illuminated into the plot of a family dealing with the decision of aiding the death of the old artist patriarch in a “permanent vegetative state”. Frankly however, the script, dialogue and fluid sequencing of scenes made the plot too confusing to follow and maintain interest, so despite great marks for the production, it was ultimately an unsatisfactory experience, with only the author to blame.
This Times review has it about right: “The cast take a creditable stab at animating the moribund writing, but this thesis on the morality of mercy killing is a soporific slog.”
A lot of promise and efforts but a great pity.
Upcoming cultural highlights are Divine Comedy as the Gateshead Sage on New Year’s Eve, and Russian State Ballet of Siberia production of Giselle at the Darlington Hippodrome in January.