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Sam Mendes and Kevin Spacey collaboration

49 replies

Jessicatmagnificat · 04/04/2007 09:51

I saw on the BBC text service yesterday that they will be working together to produce "Hamlet" and "The Tempest" to be shown at the Old Vic in London and a NY theatre. I haven't been able to find out anymore but am already excited and priming my Mum so DH and I can get a night away in London to see this!

OP posts:
DrDaddy · 04/04/2007 10:24

Further info here

grouchyoscar · 10/04/2007 13:01

Seeing the previous Mendes/Spacey collaboration was American Beauty, I'm interested

sauce · 10/04/2007 13:02

I need to know, Is-Kevin-Spacey-Gay?

Winestein · 10/04/2007 13:05

he looks happy, for sure!

Am of anyone who sees this. American Beauty was fabulous.

sauce · 10/04/2007 13:09

Oh good. So I can keep dreaming...

grouchyoscar · 10/04/2007 13:10

I know...stuck up in West Yorks with a limited budget, a DS and no car I'm dead jealous too.

Ho hum, truly hope anyone who sees it has an awesome time

Winestein · 10/04/2007 13:11

Oh, you are just too nice Grouchy. I was hoping the ceiling would fall in

Marina · 11/04/2007 12:09

Well Stephen Dillane is a fine actor but, IMO, a bit old for Hamlet. I find it bizarre that he has been cast as an ancient sage AND as an Angry Young Man in the same season.
Am drooling already at the Mighty SRB as Leontes and Lopakhin though. Now there is someone with the ability to play across a huge age range...

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 12:30

have just checked out stephen dillane - he is TOTALLY to old for hamlet IMHO.
Honestly!
Hamlet should be played by ummmmmmmm, can't think of anyone young enough at the moment!

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 12:32

rafe spall?
mark warren?

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 15:52

for Hamlet I mean.

I'm not really up to date with my dashing young thespians. Who are the top five at the mo?

Marina · 11/04/2007 23:17

Recent well-rated Hamlets have included Ed Stoppard (he must have had such a struggle to get noticed ) and Ben Whishaw.

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 23:22

I think Mark Warren would be good, very passionate and a bit scary/mad too - did you see him in the last bbc dracula?

I'd love to have seen Daniel Day Lewis in that production where he lost it and walked out - there's method acting for you!

Marina · 11/04/2007 23:25

I saw that production. He was magnetic. You just could not tear your eyes away from him on stage (also saw him in a modern play that season, The Futurists, and he was as good in that but rather ragged vocally).
I really do like Marc Warren you're right, he'd be a good (and popular) choice. Or even Mackenzie Crook, another haunted-looking actor.
Stephen Dillane is old enough to be their dads.

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 23:36

ohmigod you saw DDL as Hamlet?? I'm so so jealous - that must have been amazing! I've read about how stunning he was - just the best anyone could remember.

Mackenzie Crook would be good I can imagine that - please tell me you haven't seen KST and MC in that Chekov at the Royal Court?!

The actor I'd love to see again is Mark Rylance. I saw him at the Globe in the Tempest and wish I'd seen more of him - he's just wonderful. Are you a Rylance fan?

Marina · 11/04/2007 23:41

A friend saw Rylance in the Hamlet he did at the Royal Court in his pyjamas and said it was the best he ever saw I once saw him in Much Ado with Janet McTeer. It was a charming production (he played Benedick as a shy Ulsterman) but he needed a box to plant a smacker on her at the end, she is TALL and he is not.
It's disgraceful but I've seen nothing at the Globe since it opened , I bet he was magical as Prospero. I think his tenure there was a big success on the whole (work with someone who is heavily involved in the Globe).
I didn't see that production of the Seagull (we get out infrequently to the theatre these days but I read all the reviews and articles with wistful ) - my sister did though and said he was an utter revelation. It was her first ever Chekhov...

ipanemagirl · 11/04/2007 23:58

I went to the Globe with my mother and it was the most fun I've ever had in a theatre - it was just all so close and it made me think differently about Shakespeare etc etc. I had always thought the globe might be slightly yucky heritagey faux - but it was excellent. But I felt as if it was Rylance's charisma that made it work - I don't know what it would have been without him. Three actors played all the parts - complicated but very clever.

What's the new director supposed to be like? Have you heard about him?

I cant believe I nearly booked preview tickets for he seagull for my dh for his birthday and just didn't get it together - I've never seen any chekov either - a Big Gap to have!

Marina · 12/04/2007 08:40

Jury is still out on new guy, but in fairness I think it took MR a while to get into the groove
It is NOT an easy space to direct or act in, v. special though the project is.
I totally agree about MR having that Edge to de-cutesify the Globe.
You have to see the Cherry Orchard then ipanemagirl, although it's not my favourite of his plays. Uncle Vanya is top of my list
But they are all wonderful and much funnier (done right) than he has the reputation for.

ipanemagirl · 12/04/2007 22:49

you are uber-cognescenti marina! I wish I'd been to the theatre more - I was put off for a long time after buying expensive tickets for my dh and I to go to a truly terrible play at the Royal Court years ago. It was about television and I think Sheila Hancock was in it. We left at intermission, I felt a little bad, what can you do but it did burn my fingers a bit and I was more wary. Silly but it's true, a bad play does more damage than a bad film doesn't it?!
Then there's my low brow self who just wants to go and see guys and dolls again.... went with my sis to see ewan mcgregor and the girl from ally mcbeal - what fantastic songs.
Is there anything else you'd recommend on at the moment? Someone recently told me that he'd been blown away by Faust in some bizarre warehouse/experience kind of thing with the action going on all in and amongst the audience. Sounded amazing.

ipanemagirl · 12/04/2007 22:51

Also my mother took my brother to see original cast of Amadeus at the National. I think Simon Callow might have been Mozart. She was completely dumbstruck after. Haven't forgiven her for Not Taking ME!!!
She also saw Richard Burton on stage a few times and hasn't yet quite unswooned from that.

grouchyoscar · 13/04/2007 10:54

Marina...was that Hamlet in blue striped PJ's doing the 'To be or not to be' bit also involve wearing a huge long woolly sock?

Cos I think I saw that when I was 14. It was my 1st Shakespeare play and I was utterly befuddled by the bloke in the mac...what was he doing there?...turned out to be Horatio

BTW Hi Ipeamema Girl

Marina · 13/04/2007 19:50

I think most of us wonder what Horatio is doing there full stop, regardless of attire. It is a difficult role to make noticeable, I think
Yes that was the one Grouchy - what a way to see Hamlet for the 1st time.
Ipanemagirl, before we had the dcs dh and I were theatre-mad and saw loads of stuff in the rep theatres and West End for about TEN years, those were the days .
We hardly get to go now but my job in theatre education means I keep an eye on what is happening in the field.
I could not agree with you more about bad theatre being a real disincentive. I didn't see the play you mention (I think I remember the production though, the Royal Court has produced its share of turkeys over the years), but I once booked a large group of colleagues in to see a godawful production of Salome, starring, directed by and produced by the monstrous Steven Berkoff. If it had had an interval, we'd have all left. But it played straight through . Several people sent me to Coventry after that one
Bink saw and recommended that promenade Faust, I think. It sounded magical.
And my two BIG memories of being young and at the theatre are Paul Scofield in Othello, and Derek "Ninky Nonk" Jacobi in Hamlet.

Sobernow · 13/04/2007 20:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Marina · 13/04/2007 20:15

Did you see the carpeting Sit and Shiver got Sobernow heheheh, although I agree Decadence is Berkoff at his best.
I miss live theatre so much it hurts.
Dh and managed to get tickets to see SRB and Alex Jennings in The Alchemist at the NT recently and it brought it home to me so forcefully that we used to go straight from work to a quick meal and on to see something really engrossing about twice a month for the whole of our twenties and early thirties.
I would loved to have seen Nicholas Nickleby, how wonderful
I have fond memories of being at The Normal Heart on press night, and also, much more sadly, seeing Ian Charleson in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof shortly before he died.
I don't regret a single penny of the ££££ we must have spent on tickets all those years

Bink · 14/04/2007 10:44

I think the Faust thing finished at the end of March. It's lodged itself in my head permanently.

It was a collaboration between the National Theatre (unexpectedly) and an "immersive theatre" outfit called Punchdrunk.

Punchdrunk's website (it's a wee bit OTT and accordingly slow-running) Doesn't say what they're doing next - probably because Faust ran for much longer than had been expected.