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Showing posts from February, 2016

Future Conditional

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I watched Future Conditional at The Old Vic and give it 3/5 rating.  I don't know much about the educational system in Britain but suffices to say it's confusing and people are always complaining. There are of course, some basic issues everywhere like elite schooling gives you more probability of getting admission into an elite university like Oxford or Cambridge (or Oxbridge as it is referred to here). (And here I must say I was very surprised when I found out that not only are a chunk of the influencing members of the ruling conservative party from a single elite high school, so are some of the most influential members of the opposing labour party which was supposed to represent the working class.) What the play suggests is while these issues exist and while the society fights it out to try to change these, some of the more powerful people who can bring about change are not enthused to do it because in effect they are removing the privileges that they and their

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

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I watched Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar Theatre and rate it 5/5 ! What could be better than French scandalous comedy with brilliant acting. It's an old story, told in an old fashioned way. It's the same old love, deception, revenge. And usually old stories bore me to death in spite of stars like Benedict Cumberbatch but I watch for the stars sometimes. And so I agreed to watch this for Dominic West with little expectations. So may that's why I give a five, because it was well beyond my expectations but might be not so in general. Yet it was wonderful. Dominic West was charming and ruthless as the Vicomte de Valmont, so I was glad I went to watch him. Janet McTeer however, admirably a brilliant actor, played the lead Marquise de Merteuil which such dignified cruelty that I can't imagine anyone else portraying her. The story twists and turns and keeps you running with it. It also helps that we were sitting in the front row and can't as much

Red Velvet

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I watched Red Velvet at the Garrick Theatre and give it a 4/5 rating. It was a well-researched, flawlessly written play. It maps out the controversy around Theatre Royal and Ira Aldridge, the first black Shakespearean actor. For a play set in the past, the undertones of society are so smoothly woven in. Written by Lolita Chakraborthy, it feels like it was with Adrian Lester in mind that the play took shape and he wears Ira Aldridge like a glove. The young, ambitious and overconfident Ira Aldridge takes on the powerhouse of London Theatre. While his colleagues eventually warm up to him, the public is outraged and reviews are mostly about his blackness and stereotyped "monstrosity" rather than his or his colleagues' acting prowess. His fury, disappointment and hurt (in that order) are apparent when eventually the director (and originally his only believer) decides to let him go because Ira refuses to tone down his emotional acting that the press finds very