This done pissed me off. I could end the blog post here! If you’re my family, you might want to skip this one. I’m going to be talking about weird sex politics…it’s the shows fault, not mine!
I was initially really excited to see the show. The poster said something about Succession, which is a show I’m fond of, and it had Ewan McGregor! Obi-Wan Kenobi! Boy oh boy, I wish I was watching the Star Wars prequels (which, for the record, I don’t think are bad movies). His performance was just so bland. It felt like he was reading the lines for the first time. I think this is mostly the scripts fault, but I’ll get there all in due time. Elizabeth Debicki’s performance had a similar meh-ness to it as McGregors. I’m trying to think of something to say about her but…nothing.
Kate Fleetwood, however, stole the show. She took the stilted, strange dialogue and made me believe her character in all her eccentrics would genuinely talk like that. At least when she was on stage, I was having fun in a way you want to have fun in the theater.
So…the script…I’m a writer 🤓 and this was just textbook bad writing. The dialogue between the characters was so bad. Like, genuinely no other way I could put it than bad. People just don’t talk the way these characters talk, and maybe if one character talked like that it would be fine…but everyone? Through all this metaphor and purple prose? Give me a break. The timeline and story were muddled, confusing…it was just BAD. GUYS. IT WAS JUST HORRID. I’M GETTING TO A POINT WHERE THATS ALL I CAN SAY.
Moving on to the uncomfortable part (if you’re my family and you did not heed my first warning, you can dip out now or skip this paragraph), sex and sexuality played a role in this show but…for what. It felt like shock factor, just meant to scandalize you that Debicki is talking about getting bent over or getting on her knees. Notably, all the vulgar sex talk came from her, the beautiful young woman! Hmm…I do not like. I also don’t like the implication that her experience being groomed by McGregor’s character is what made her someone into dominant/submissive, BDSM relations. Perhaps our playwright thought she was replacing Hilda’s original manipulation in Ibsen’s show with a sort of sexual manipulation here, but it just didn’t work for me. It felt like someone had the hots for Debicki and wanted to hear her say lines directly from a Wattpad smut fanfic written by a 14 year old with no sex education.
Something I did like was the set and lighting design. The set was just beautiful, and I really felt transported to the Hamptons (anywhere but that damn theater watching that show I’ll take), and the lighting was just so interesting. I’m not a tech person, so I’m not the girl you talk to about this, but I was thinking “pretty light go pop like firework”. I don’t have much to say about the sound design. A lot of the non-diegetic sound seemed like the play was trying to be a movie. Once again, not the girl you talk to about that.
The ending. WHAT THE HELL WAS EVEN THAT! When McGregor’s character falls, you can literally see him slide down his rope to his spot. Then bro just dies. Like I guess that would kill you…
In the final moments, he reaches to the middle distance and says “My…Hilda” before he kicks the bucket as Debicki stands to the back of the stage just staring at him die. I literally tossed my hands at this. The parallel to My Master Builder and “my Hilda” was SO OBVIOUS I felt like this woman was waterboarding me. Maybe this would’ve been earned if she was the manipulator she was in the original version, but she just wasn’t. She was just there. The wife? Just there. McGregor? Just there. The other two characters who I didn’t even bother to mention? Just there. At this point, I’m wishing I fell off the chapel. Mercy.
If the playwrights intention was to center the women of Ibsen’s original story, she did a bad job. Every time those two interacted and I thought something would actually happen, nothing came of it. In a way, she stripped their agency and centered McGregor in their lives even more! Ladies, are we not tired? You know how long the Bechdel test has been around?
I’m so done. I can’t do this anymore. At least Wyndham’s Theatre was beautiful. I should’ve gotten the overpriced drink at the bar.
Theatre in London U of A 