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Showing posts with the label musical adaptations

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A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

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It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...

Nice is different than good: Into The Woods (the movie)

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It's not theatre but the source material is, and Into the Woods makes for a nice film. There are some things to admire in this film which is a mash up of fairy tales tells the story of what happens when the characters get their wishes and try and live happily ever after. While some songs are lost from the stage musical, the end result is a shorter, more focussed story. But something seems to get lost lately when musicals are adapted for the screen. Like other film adaptations it suffers from some poor choices in casting. Notably James Corden, who is not known for his singing abilities, in the central role of the baker. His performance comes across as a bit one note and lacking any sense of comic timing (or charisma).  And Corden's voice, while not as bad as hearing Russell Crowe sing flatly in Les Miserables, it comes a close second.