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Accessing Your Inner Brit
Theater for those who can’t or won’t get to what’s still the United Kingdom
By Terry Morgan
Jack Lowden (Oswald) and Lesley Manville (Helene) in Ghosts at Trafalgar Studios. (Photo by Hugo Glendinning)
Previous columns have covered ways in which people can see plays screened in movie theaters or recorded on CD, but options for those interested in the arts are expanding even more. The website Digital Theatre (digitaltheatre.com) is a great resource for those who want to access current British theater from their computer or TV (also available for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch). The site is partnered with theaters such as the Royal Court Theatre, the Almeida Theatre, the Young Vic, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe and Menier Chocolate Factory. Membership is free, and some of the productions available include Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant, Long Day’s Journey Into Night with David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf, King Lear with Jonathan Pryce, and Macbeth with David Morrissey. The site also features opera and ballet, with Royal Opera House productions such as La Traviata and Swan Lake.
Customers can choose to watch a selection streaming over the internet or download it and watch it offline. The prices are quite reasonable, with $5.99 for a rental, $12.99 to buy, and $15.99 for an HD purchase. There is also a West End Theatre series screened in cinemas, but as of this writing there don’t seem to be any current dates in the U.S. Digital Theatre Plus (digitaltheatreplus.com) offers schools and universities a way to help educate their students about the arts, with subscription programs that include behind-the-scenes material and study guides. The latest release on Digital Theatre is the Almeida Theatre production of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, starring Lesley Manville and directed by Richard Eyre.
Adam Kotz (Manders) and Lesley Manville (Helene) in Ghosts at Trafalgar Studios. (Photo by Hugo Glendinning)
Eyre’s adaptation is particularly strong, modernizing just enough of the language to give Ibsen’s work the most impact. He gets superb performances from his quintet of actors, with Manville especially memorable as a woman whose difficult life has led up to one spectacularly bad day. Adam Kotz is wonderful as the bullying yet cowardly Pastor Manders, and Brian McCardie is simultaneously comedic and sinister as the manipulative Jacob. Eyre uses Tim Hatley’s set design to great effect, with a see-through scrim wall dividing two rooms and allowing the audience to see the action in both. Peter Mumford’s lighting charts the mood from watery illumination at the beginning of the play down to the darkness of one lamp, concluding with a blaze of growing light as a dying character begs for the sun. Ibsen’s play retains its power, and this production is an excellent showcase.
Streaming the play on my computer was easy, and visually it looked very crisp and clean. There was no lag or buffering–the entire process was convenient and professional. Digital Theatre is a welcome addition to the landscape for arts lovers, and I’ll likely review more of its offerings in future columns.
Upcoming Screenings
Good news from Laemmle Theatres. They’re starting a series called “Culture Vulture Mondays,” where each Monday they show either a play, an opera or a ballet. The first theater offering is the Globe Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night, starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. It screens on September 22 at 7:30 (check laemmle.com/pages/culturevulture for venues), then repeats the following day with a 1 p.m. encore. The next play will be the Globe production of Henry V on 10/6. If this series continues, it should be a constant treat for theater aficionados.
In NT Live news, there’s a lot of positive activity and one possible loss. In the plus column, NT Live likely did its biggest promotional push yet with its screening of A Streetcar Named Desire, banking on the presence of Gillian Anderson to deliver higher ticket sales. It showed in 11 theaters in the L.A. area on 9/16, most of which had never or rarely shown an NT Live presentation. It encores on 10/5 at the James Bridges Theater at UCLA, and at the Sundance Sunset Cinema on 10/13 & 18. Medea, starring Helen McCrory as the titular dubious mom, shows at the Sundance Sunset on 10/6 & 11, and at the Bridges on 10/12. David Hare’s Skylight, starring Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy, premieres in late October, and Danny Boyle’s popular version of Frankenstein, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, encores yet again in multiple venues in late October as well. Unfortunately, one of the three local venues that regularly screened NT Live offerings, the Downtown Independent, has at least temporarily stopped doing so. Hopefully the Independent will resume its NT Live showings soon.
