Arkadina - Juliet Stevenson
Konstantin - Ben Whishaw
Sorin - Gawn Grainger
Nina - Hattie Morohan
Shamraev - Michael Gould
Polina - Liz Kettle
Masha - Sandy McDade
Trigorin - Mark Bazeley
Dorn - Angus Wright
Medvedienko - Justin Salinger
Yakov - James Bolt
Servants - James Bolt, Beth Fitzgerald, Jonah Russell
Directed by Katie Mitchell
Designed by Vicki Mortimer
During this adaptation's first run at the Littleton Theatre
Well, you will not often see me say this but I was dissappointed.
I came to see Ben in the knowledge that I would not enjoy Juliet and there lies the problem. I did not feel the cast were all under the same direction. Juliet was prancing around over-doing it as usual and Ben was showing a little too much of his troubled angst that he can do so well but usually keeps back more.
I don't know if there was a genuine technical problem on the day I went but the very first scene change took a full four minutes. That is a very long time and the audience didn't know what to do. The set was majestic and the changes cannot have been easy but in a production where cohesion is lacking already, pausing for the men in black to fart around it the last thing it needed.
There were some nice little performances but I wanted them to all be on the same page
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