Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Little Eyolf...

Last Friday night Stuart and I went to see Richard Eyre's adaption and production of Little Eyolf at the Almeida Theatre in glitzy Islington.

Perhaps not the best known of Ibsen's plays and on the face it not a crowd-pleaser given the subject material this turned out to be a truly great production of what we discovered to be a truly great play. It was deeply moving and it had me in tears more than once.

It tells the story of a couple whose disabled son is coming between them. The arrival of the pest controller rat-wife and her Pied-Piper-of-Hamelin powers of drawing rats into the waters soon has a tragic effect on the family. Within the 80 minute running time we see buckets of painful raw emotion, bitter recriminations, death, grief, blame, nudity, incest, and a cute little dog.

A minimal set, simple blocking but a brilliant cast pull out all of their acting stops and we left the theatre shattered. Special mention needs to go to leading lady Lydia Leonard who puts on a simply devastating performance.

Highly recommended.

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