American Buffalo
Jun. 17th, 2015 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smallhobbitWhen one of my friends suggesting seeing Damian Lewis on stage, I said I'd love to go. Unfortunately we couldn't find a suitable date - her line of work makes Saturdays problematic - but having got the thought in my head I wasn't going to give up. So I contacted my usual group of friends to see if anyone was interested. This is the great thing about having a group of friends who all like the theatre, not everyone will want to go all the time, but there's usually someone prepared to see something they haven't a clue about.
Which was how five of us came to be going to the Wyndhams Theatre in London to see a play none of us knew anything about. (According to the blurb it's a classic of the American canon and one of David Mamet's masterpieces.) After the obligatory lunch in Pizza Express (we always go there, it saves hours of fangirl indecision) we headed across the road to take our front seats in the balcony.
The set was amazing. The play is set in Don Dubrow's junk shop and looked so realistic. It's the sort of shop people rarely go into and then only when they've tried to find something everywhere else and this is their last hope - and it generally fails. It must take ages to set up and, since during the course of the play an good number of items are moved, preparing for the evening performance after a matinée has to be particularly hard work.
The play is a three-hander, Damian Lewis as "Teach", John Goodman as Don Dubrow and Tom Sturridge as the junkie Bob. All of them were good. Lewis' character was the sort I dislike, but his acting kept me watching. Goodman's character was the anchor to the play and whilst again I felt no particular sympathy for him, he was the sort I would have been happy to pass the time of day with, Goodman conveying a warmth within him. Sturridge was very good as the junkie, as one of my friends said, his body language really made the audience feel for him. (He's due to play Henry VI in the BBC's forthcoming Hollow Crown second series).
The play, although it has a plot, is really about the three characters and how they relate to each other. It doesn't end with a bang, but with a (literal) whimper, and the ending works so well - leaving what could be a very dismal end on a positive note.
Which was how five of us came to be going to the Wyndhams Theatre in London to see a play none of us knew anything about. (According to the blurb it's a classic of the American canon and one of David Mamet's masterpieces.) After the obligatory lunch in Pizza Express (we always go there, it saves hours of fangirl indecision) we headed across the road to take our front seats in the balcony.
The set was amazing. The play is set in Don Dubrow's junk shop and looked so realistic. It's the sort of shop people rarely go into and then only when they've tried to find something everywhere else and this is their last hope - and it generally fails. It must take ages to set up and, since during the course of the play an good number of items are moved, preparing for the evening performance after a matinée has to be particularly hard work.
The play is a three-hander, Damian Lewis as "Teach", John Goodman as Don Dubrow and Tom Sturridge as the junkie Bob. All of them were good. Lewis' character was the sort I dislike, but his acting kept me watching. Goodman's character was the anchor to the play and whilst again I felt no particular sympathy for him, he was the sort I would have been happy to pass the time of day with, Goodman conveying a warmth within him. Sturridge was very good as the junkie, as one of my friends said, his body language really made the audience feel for him. (He's due to play Henry VI in the BBC's forthcoming Hollow Crown second series).
The play, although it has a plot, is really about the three characters and how they relate to each other. It doesn't end with a bang, but with a (literal) whimper, and the ending works so well - leaving what could be a very dismal end on a positive note.
