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Post by fenris on Jun 28, 2009 17:28:02 GMT
Thanks for the heads-up, orokiah. I'll be sure to record it.
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Post by fenris on Aug 2, 2009 12:16:52 GMT
Troilus and Cressida has opened at the Globe, and here are a handful of reviews (there are many more) that I've found on-line. The following material remains the property of the relevant copyright holders, no infringment is intended, etc.
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph damns the production with faint praise; I’ve long suspected that Shakespeare wrote Troilus and Cressida after being betrayed in love only to discover that he had been left with a nasty dose of the clap. There is a bitter cynicism here that is unique in the canon, an obsession with pus and running sores and disease, and a consistently debunking attitude towards the great mythic heroes. Chaucer’s poem, Troilus and Criseyde, is full of humanity, tenderness, beauty and grief. In Shakespeare’s version love is reduced to lust, empty words, and bad faith. The drama only achieved popularity in the early 20th century, when its attitude to the senselessness of war struck a chord with those who had experienced the gap between pompous patriotic rhetoric and the brutal reality of life in the trenches. In its mood of ugly disenchantment and corrosive cynicism it is perhaps the most modern of all Shakespeare’s plays. But it is a hard play to endure. The language is exceptionally knotty and complex, while the lack of redeeming grace oppresses the spirit. And at a time when Britain is engaged in yet another dubious foreign war, in which poorly equipped soldiers are going to their deaths while the politicians spout platitudes, I question director Matthew Dunster’s decision to stage the piece in togas and sandals. This is a drama that requires a twist of the contemporary about it. Worse still, many in the cast aren’t up to the task. Paul Stock’s blond, bubble-haired Troilus is dismayingly bland until the moment when he learns he must part from Cressida, when he lets out a ridiculously stagy, high-pitched scream that would seem excessive even if delivered by Edward II receiving his vile quietus. Nor does he capture the wrenching agony of the character as he watches his beloved betray him. The diminutive Laura Pyper, with punky purple highlights in her hair, brings a touching vulnerability to Cressida, even if she does sound more like a provincial check-out girl in Tesco than a great Shakespearean heroine. But there is barely a hint of a sexual spark between the lovers, and she only really makes her mark in the scene when she is manhandled and kissed by the Trojan commanders. Here she suddenly becomes both poignant and brave. The best performance comes from Matthew Kelly who plays Pandarus with preposterous curls in his hair, a camp comedy that puts one in mind of Frankie Howerd, and a palpable lust for Troilus. He leaves no doubt that the main reason Pandarus facilitates the love affair is that it will give him a chance to ogle hunky male flesh. Kelly could however make much more of the character’s embittered, pox-ridden end. Chinna Wodu is a hilariously vain and stupid Ajax, Trystan Gravelle a charismatic Achilles while Paul Hunter, with his scabby scalp and grotesque eyeglass proves memorably disconcerting as the scurrilous Thersites who provides a cynical running commentary on the action. But the production needs more darkness, more sex, and more modernity if it is to do full justice to this unsettling masterpiece. Telegraph rating: * * *
Michael Coveney of The Independent gives it three stars out of five. His review; The two "difficult" Shakespeare plays rediscovered in the past 50 years are Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, and neither shows any sign yet of losing its appeal, if that's the right word, for a modern audience. Whereas Measure needs little coaxing to reveal the taut skein of its intersecting strands of public life and private morality, Troilus can often become tangled in good intentions and the knottiness of its own arguments. While Matthew Dunster's fine Globe production doesn't have the surface brilliance of Sam Mendes' unbeatable RSC version years ago, it does grip. That's no mean achievement at the Globe, whose outdoor properties and shuffling patrons suit the Bard's flourishes more than his denser passages. But nobody speaks in the play without being certain of that which he means, and that takes us through the philosophical passages, war-mongering debates and historical contextualising with minimal fuss. Troilus is, above all, a sociopolitical document of decay and disease during an endless war, the point of which most people have forgotten. Its heroes have become empty vessels, its victims marginalised nonentities, and Thersites roams the field spraying all participants in contempt and abuse. Paul Hunter's embittered little Greek creep doesn't have the disgusted authority and sense of spiritual independence that Simon Russell Beale once managed, but he does represent the verminous reality of a voice of protest no one much heeds any more. The Greeks, camped outside Troy for seven years with no sign of a solution, are otherwise represented by strutting demigods, living legends, such as Matthew Flynn's powerful Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief, and Trystan Gravelle's preening, over-made-up Welsh-accented Achilles, lolling in a muslin boudoir with his companion Patroclus (Beru Tessema). Against this background, the enthusiastic calf love of Paul Stocker's troubled Troilus and Laura Pyper's sweetly determined Cressida is positive and refreshing. Even when taunted by the Greeks, and apparently seduced by Jay Taylor's very attractive Diomedes, Pyper remains resolutely alive and alert, totally unfazed.
Gerald Berkowitz in The Stage; Shakespeare’s Trojan War play poses many problems for any director and cast, not least of which is the fact that its two plot lines, the romance of the titular couple and the internal politics of both armies, have very little to do with each other and constantly jostle for our attention. A result is that Matthew Dunster’s production takes a long time to warm up, with much of the lengthy exposition presented as talky and static speech-making rather than real interaction among the characters.Once all has been established, and the lovers are allowed to declare their love and the generals to develop individual personalities, the play and the characters come alive. Paul Stocker and Laura Pyper bring an attractive youthfulness to the lovers, he suggesting Romeo at both his soppiest and most instantly matured by love, while her quick wit and mercurial nature recall Rosalind more than Juliet. Her characterisation doesn’t allow for the excuse of weakness or desperation for her betrayal of their love, giving more validity to his anger and a darker tone to their part of the play. Matthew Kelly is entertaining as a camp Pandarus, Jamie Ballard effectively underplays Ulysses’ deviousness, Trystan Gravelle maintains a sense of dark danger in the languid and effete Achilles, and Paul Hunter makes Thersites more clown than embittered cynic, somewhat softening the play’s implicit anti-war stance. A few entrances and exits through the groundlings aside, Matthew Dunster’s staging and direction are exactly what they would be on a proscenium stage.
Philip Fisher on The British Theatre Guide website singles Laura out for special praise in his review; The story of Troilus and Cressida may be drawn from an epic Greek tale but it is not one of Shakespeare's greatest works. Busy director Matthew Dunster gives the impression that he is not fully confident in the text, asking for expressive acting from a cast with manifold regional accents who seem to be chosen more than anything to milk every comic line. The main story is about young love across the battle lines in a war between Greece and Troy caused by the beautiful Helen's infidelity. Around the romance are woven stories of cowardice and bravery amongst a large, classically-dressed cast divided between Greeks clad in various shades of pale blue and their opponents in regal purple. However, while the warriors plot and fight, their efforts are trumped by four comedians. Matthew Kelly plays Pandarus, the uncle who introduces his tiny, sylph-like niece Cressida to Troilus. Kelly does a wonderful job of crowd pleasing with a stream of jokes, as he engenders what must surely be the equal shortest love affair in history, matching that other pair from earlier in the Young Hearts Season, Romeo and Juliet. The lovers, played by Paul Stocker and Laura Pyper, have only a single night of bliss before the girl is traded for a captured soldier and true love loses its way forever. Trystan Gravelle makes an androgynous Achilles with a strong Welsh accent, more interested in trysting with his catamite, Beru Tessema's Patroclus, than the enemy. Their servant is Thersites played with great wit by a Dunster favourite, Paul Hunter as a kind of Grecian Baldrick. Last of the big jokers is stolid, gullible Ajax, the Mohicanned Chinna Wodu playing a soldier so dumb that his bravery and strength must be second to none. The evening looks good with some great fight scenes and the levity of a thieves' market proving entertaining. There is also some great work from Olivia Chaney who, in addition to playing Andromache and the harmonium, sings ethereally with a kind of angelic beauty. Matthew Dunster shows an instinctive feel for the Globe's unique requirements, making the most of the space and working hard to keep his audience on side. Even so, he can find no real solution beyond powerful acting to redeem a series of dull, wordy but informative speeches with which this three-hour evening is littered. Overall though, thanks to the comedians and the efforts of Laura Pyper, a star in the making with lively stage presence and comic sensibility, this is an enjoyable romp through a difficult play.
Time Out gives the production four stars out of five; This Trojan War drama is the earliest of Shakespeare's so-called 'problem plays'. Not a comedy, tragedy or history, though containing elements of all three, it catches the Bard in unwontedly cynical mode. The heroes of Greek legend are all here, but the play's vision of them is filtered through the perspective of black comedy: the great Achilles is too busy toying with his male favourite, Patroclus, to fight, and when he does finally consent to go into battle he kills his foe by the most dishonourable of means; his cousin Ajax is little more than a vainglorious dolt. There is a tale of true love in the midst of the seemingly interminable war, celebrated nobly by Homer but here reduced to its basest terms - 'all the argument is a cuckold and a whore', as the scabrous fool Thersites, perhaps the most caustic character in the whole of Shakespeare, says. True to the 'Young Hearts' theme of the current Globe season, director Matthew Dunster has plumped for extreme youth in the casting of the lovers. At first Laura Pyper's Cressida and Paul Stocker's Troilus seem a bit underpowered - it's no doubt intentional that they initially come over as 'Coronation Street'-style romancers - but as the drama unfolds both begin to suggest unsuspected depths of feeling. And that's what's really impressive about Dunster's inventive production. It keeps surprising you by the way it continually cuts through the play's rambling nihilism with shafts of strong and strange emotion: it's there in Ania Sowinski's first irruption as the prophetic Cassandra; in Christopher Colquhoun's too noble warrior Hector; it's even there in Matthew Kelly's fine turn as the bawd Pandarus, played here as a panto dame with tragic self-awareness.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
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Posts: 34
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Aug 13, 2009 19:03:54 GMT
great reviews!
She is also supposed to have a new short movie called Sam And Jenny Go To A Play come out soon.
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Post by orokiah on Sept 25, 2009 19:39:12 GMT
Laura Pyper is voicing the character of Lexine in the new Wii game Dead Space: Extraction. Here's a link to a short video about the characters which features a brief interview with her: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzQVy73b92k
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Post by orokiah on Oct 10, 2009 16:52:56 GMT
Here's a rare event: an interview with Laura Pyper. It mostly discusses her role in Emma, and includes the first promo pic I've seen of her as Jane Fairfax. It probably belongs in the Emma thread, but I've put it here as it covers other aspects of her career too (notably her two 'weeping victims' (!) on The Bill): Ulster actress plays elegant Jane in new costume drama
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Post by orokiah on Oct 22, 2009 16:45:51 GMT
The Alibi channel is currently repeating last year's series of Silent Witness (series 12). The episode guest starring Laura Pyper, 'Judgement', is being shown on Tuesday 27th October at 11pm, with another showing on Wednesday 28th October at 9pm.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
Saviour, Saint, Salvation
Posts: 34
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Oct 30, 2009 19:44:49 GMT
I am so glad she is finally getting some roles!
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Post by orokiah on Nov 10, 2009 12:43:03 GMT
Laura is guest-starring in episode four of the new series of Spooks, playing a character called Angel.
It's being shown on BBC Three on Friday 20th November at 9pm, and on BBC One on Wednesday 25th November, also at 9pm.
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Post by fenris on Nov 10, 2009 23:06:20 GMT
Thanks for the heads-up, orokiah. I don't normally watch Spooks, but I'll make an exception for Laura.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Dec 28, 2009 18:22:28 GMT
Is there anything new with Laura going on?
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Post by orokiah on Jan 3, 2010 14:58:11 GMT
Is there anything new with Laura going on? No idea, sorry. Hopefully her high profile role in Emma will lead to bigger and better things for her in 2010 though.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
Saviour, Saint, Salvation
Posts: 34
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Jan 15, 2010 18:55:02 GMT
Is there anything new with Laura going on? No idea, sorry. Hopefully her high profile role in Emma will lead to bigger and better things for her in 2010 though. Hopefully!
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Post by orokiah on Feb 21, 2010 20:08:43 GMT
The Twitter feed for forthcoming British gangster thriller Isle of Dogs, starring Edward Hogg (White Lightnin') and Barbara Nedeljáková (Hostel), reports that Laura Pyper has joined the cast to play 'feisty housekeeper' Kelly:
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Post by orokiah on Mar 4, 2010 17:20:12 GMT
Laura Pyper's episode of Silent Witness, 'Judgement', is being repeated again on Alibi this weekend. It's being shown on Saturday 6th March at 10.55pm, and screens again on Sunday 7th March at 9pm.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
Saviour, Saint, Salvation
Posts: 34
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Mar 16, 2010 18:08:55 GMT
Cool. Cannot wait to see what else she has coming up.
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