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A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
Topic Started: Mar 27 2009, 08:35 PM (2,799 Views)
mia
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Hiya Eccles,
I've said it before and I'll say it again......... I LOVE hearing about your adventures in Ecclesland!!!! Keep us posted! :D
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ecclesno9
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Naturally of course I will keep everyone posted on my (mis)adventures.

Next Thursday I will do the full review and if appropriate, my encounter with Christopher. :$ ;)

Ecclesno9
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KathyC


That's a nice pic attached to your post of June 6th ecclesno9.

Don't know why that forum flamed you when you are just a genuine fan, who is happy to ask CE for an autograph after a show but would never lie in wait for him, or intrude, or invade his privacy, or monopolise his time, which is what a stalker would probably do. You keep it up.
Enjoy the show! :)
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Mayzee
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Jude's Next Fawley

Have a good time at the play. At least he knows I ain't stalking him. LOL! That would be classed as... world's worst Eccleston stalker since... I can't even get across the Atlantic.
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undine
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I cant even get across the Irish sea to go stalking. And that's a nothing size sea.
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ecclesno9
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Thank you for your kind thoughts Mayzee and Kathy C.

It is much appreciated. :hugs:

I will never, ever class myself as #1 Eccleston fan, never will be, his mother is and damn proud of her youngest too.

True story if slightly OT:

I am a huge fan of "The X-Files" even going as far as Vancouver BC not once but twice almost ending up (wrong side sadly) once in an episode.

I first met William B Davis (Smoking Man/Cancer Man from "The X-Files") at a small convention in Coventry. He had travelled halfway round the world to be at the convention. Unfortunately some young men were taking the mick out of me, one saying out loud, "God help the world if they clone her," laughing as he did so. William on hearing this went, "How dare you say that to her, she has made me feel so welcome to England, offered and pay dinner and get me a drink for me and that's all you have to say for yourselves? You know what I won't even answer any of your stupid questions tomorrow if that's how you treat a young woman!" The young man obviously now embarrassed by what he said apologised to me.

A year later and I find myself in Detroit MI and attending the EXPO a convention and exhibition of props from the show. The PR people were asking various fans how far they had travelled. Yes, I was from England and was allowed to go to the VIP area afterwards. I was even given a $200 baseball jacket too for free!

"Hello, haven't we met in England?" came a voice. None other than William himself, "Fancy seeing you here. Are you on vacation or business?"
"Small world isn't it?"
"Yes isn't it just."

He then gave me a big bear hug. :$

Yes there is a connection, he trained alongside Dame Maggie Smith (Toby Stephen's mother) at the National Theatre.

Ecclesno9 (feeling a whole lot better)
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ecclesno9
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Before I set off to London, Tuesday lunchtime, would anyone like the following merchandise getting for them? Please let me know by PM me before 10.00 p.m. (BST) on Monday 15th June. Sorry, but Christopher is a bit on the expensive side, I might have to use two rolls of tape and a lot of brown paper :rof:

I will also try (no guarantees here) to get Christopher to sign a few programmes too. That's the kind of person I am.

http://www.donmarwarehouse.com/p34.html

Plus postage and shipping costs - BTW I'm not made of money. If not you can always order direct.

Ecclesno9

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KathyC


That's a kind offer ecclesno9.
Nothing for me, thank you. But I hope you have a great time and I'm looking forward to hearing about it. :)
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undine
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ecclesno9
Jun 13 2009, 08:01 PM
Sorry, but Christopher is a bit on the expensive side, I might have to use two rolls of tape and a lot of brown paper :rof:
Hmm I'm already getting some stuff sent by courier from the UK wonder if I could combine postage?! :rof:
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shirlie


It is very far from Hong Kong. I prefer to waiting your reply.
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LeighS11
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Have fun, Ecclesno9! Can't wait to hear about it. It's the closest I'm going to get from this side of the pond.
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ecclesno9
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Currently getting very, very excited!
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mad_about_musicals
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ecclesno9
Jun 15 2009, 07:39 PM
Currently getting very, very excited!
I bet!! :D I was like that going to see John Barrowman in concert!! Lol
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Mayzee
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Jude's Next Fawley

William B. Davis is a very congenial man despite the chilling character he portrayed on The X Files. He is genuine and sweet and has a great sense of humour. He says that he gets the greatest amusement out of going out shopping at the pharmacy or the department store because often another shopper will look at him for a minute and then suddenly gasp in horror when they recognize that he's "cancerman". I have to admit, I'd love that too. What a laugh.

Have a good time at the play. I will be off work after today, so catch you all when I can.
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ecclesno9
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Am so VERY tired ATM - I've only come back.

A full review of "Macaroons and Chairs" will follow after I've had a nap.
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mad_about_musicals
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ecclesno9
Jun 18 2009, 02:31 PM
Am so VERY tired ATM - I've only come back.

A full review of "Macaroons and Chairs" will follow after I've had a nap.
Can't wait! :D
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ecclesno9
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A very quick non "arty" review more fan girl than Tookey:

A stella cast that includes Gillian Anderson, Toby Stevens and Tara Fitzgerald to a modern reworking by Zinnie Harris of Ibsen's classic play of secrets and lies, corruption, blackmail and eventual heartbreak. A cracking, fizzling dynamic play that has not loss any of its potency since it was first performed 130 years ago that shocked society back then. It's even shocking now, the way it leaves you wanting to know what happens next. I want to see this again as Christopher has so much energy that it's a pity he isn't given more lines. If you are lucky go and see this play because it's F A N T A S T I C! (no, not just because of Christopher being angsty neither). The play zips and paces along nicely at two hours with a twenty minute interval.

Oh I better explain about Macaroons and Chairs for those left with scratching their heads thinking what I was on about.

Macaroons - Nora is addicted to these, "keeps me my hips slim and my teeth white"
Chairs - Christine has to buy three more because Kelman and his "nearly grown up sons" eventually decides to move in with her.

Christopher is on devastating form as the disgraced politician Kellman who seeks revenge from his arch rival Thomas Vaughan, his political freefall and his final redemption in the form of Christine Lyle who offers him the love he so desperately misses from his late wife. He just exudes every emotion from anger to grief from every pore of his skin. He is really is on the top of his profession, my only wish is that he do more theatre outside London and to the provincial theatres.

Christopher is stunning, at times beautiful in his craft. And loving every minute of it too, it shows too what a character and emotional driven actor he is.

If you want an "arty" critic review please be patient. Because I've written nearly 700 words already and it sounds so "pretentious" and it might take up a page on its little own.

Ecclesno9
Edited by ecclesno9, Jun 19 2009, 02:09 PM.
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KathyC


Thanks for the review ecclesno9. It's great to hear that CE is so good in this role. It sounds as if it was written for him i.e. angsty, driven, emotional.
(Not that I'm implying he can't do lighter roles, we all know he's great at that too.) :)
He must be very happy to have this part as he's said in interviews for years that he hasn't done enough theatre and wanted to get back to it.
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ecclesno9
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I just wish he would do more theatre not only in London but elsewhere.

He holds your attention and makes damn sure of it too!
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ecclesno9
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This is taken from the study guide of "A Doll's House". Makes an interesting insight for those interested in how Christopher has perfected his craft over the last twenty-one years from graduating from Central School of Speech and Drama too:

Christopher Eccleston – Neil Kelman

You are working with a classic text, yet, at the same time, with a new play. How has this impacted on the rehearsal process?
Well, I made a decision not to read any of the other versions or translations prior to going into rehearsals. That was my first way of dealing with that; I wasn’t going to look at other versions and say ‘I want this, I want that.’ One way that it has impacted is that there has been a change of status in the characters. In the original version, which I am familiar with because I did it at drama school, Torvald and Krogstad are provincial bank clerks really, whereas here their equivalent characters, Thomas Vaughn and Neil Kelman, are Cabinet Ministers at the centreof government. That’s a huge leap in terms of social status and has had to inform our thinking to a certain extent.

You mention that you were involved in a production of the play at drama school. Has this informed the way you have approached the role of Kelman in this production?
In the second year of training on our course, the students always staged an Ibsen. Our Ibsen was A Doll’s House, and I was cast as Krogstad, who is the equivalent character to Neil Kelman in Zinnie’s version. I only got to play one of his scenes, because, being student actors, we all had to have a crack at a part. My closest friend and myself shared the role. I think I did Act One and he did Acts Two and Three. I fell in love with the play and with Ibsen as a writer. It is notable that a major drama school, the Central School of Speech and Drama, used Ibsen as a central pillar for training actors.

What is it that you’ve discovered about Ibsen that makes his plays so special?
He writes three dimensional characters. He writes about the inconsistencies of being human, what Dennis Potter once described as humans being half ape and half angel; the grey moral areas that we all, during our life, move in and out of. He presents characters who are in conflict and try to think or feel their way out of it, in front of us on stage – and I think this is the attraction. One of my fellow students said that he felt you should watch Ibsen as though you were looking through a keyhole. That it should be intensely naturalistic.

In this version, Zinnie has invented the masterstroke of setting the play in Neil Kelman’s former home How has your character’s attachment to the location influenced your approach to the rehearsal process?
One of the challenges of this new version is that, in the original, Krogstad (Kelman) was of a lower social status than Torvald (Thomas) whereas here he is an equal, and that creates new territory, because we don’t have that social clash. There is an equality in this new relationship, and it is something that I am still struggling with. I have decided to play Kelman with my natural, Northern accent, which possibly denotes a working class background and creates a contrast to Toby’s Thomas Vaughn, who speaks with RP (Received Pronunciation). Using the example of the
Welsh politician and eventual Prime Minister, Lloyd George, we have established that there were ministers with non-standard English accents in Parliament at that time, in the seat of power. So, that brings all kinds of class conflicts into the play; it certainly helps us mark out Kelman as an outsider, which he undoubtedly is. He’s been pushed to the margins of society, whether this is for the right or the wrong reasons, is for the audience to decide.

You say he’s been pushed to the margins of society, he refers to that himself, doesn’t he, when he says to Nora in their first scene together, ‘I am on the bottom rung of the ladder, there’s only you between me and the gutter.’ He also says to her, ‘You don’t belong here, you belong in the sewer with me.’
But, as Stanislavski said, we can never quite believe what a character says aboutthemselves, and we can also never quite believe what other characters say about them – because all characters have motives. So, what is fact, in this play, is very hard to establish, and whether Kelman is the villain of the piece, who has done all these terrible things, is open to question. We’ve been told these things, but only by people who have a vested interest in Kelman being a bad person. That’s the interesting thing about Ibsen, he makes us question our perception. The central character of Nora is deeply flawed; she’s not the perfect heroine, she is a real woman. That is the attraction of the play. Real women are not always perfect, as we all know. And neither are real men!

You were referring earlier to Lloyd George, and the status of politicians of this era. Have you, as a company or as an individual, done any historical research that has informed the rehearsal process?
Well, I’m going to be slightly controversial; I’ve always felt that with Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov, people can get overly obsessed with the period details. I’m attracted to Ibsen’s plays because of the flesh and blood of the characters. This is what I have focussed on, rather than the period detail. Obviously I will be wearing a period costume, and, in Zinnie’s version, I am using period language. I have concentrated on creating Kelman from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. I’m interested in the elemental and primal things about the character.

With that interest in the primal elements of Kelman, have you made any key discoveries about the character during rehearsals so far?
At this stage, I think the thing that I am working towards, and Gillian and I have spoken about this, is that because of this financial arrangement that Nora has with him, they have a relationship of sorts; they have had to see each other. When human beings spend time together, however brief, there are exchanges on all kinds of levels. For instance, we improvised her arriving to pay the monthly amount, and what may have passed between them. Maybe she asked about his children; maybe he asked about her children; maybe some sympathetic relationship was there, because he wasn’t applying any pressure at this time, he was helping her out (although he was making interest on the money) and there was a tremendous emphasis on manners at this time, on formality, so that would keep the meetings polite. The interesting thing about Nora is that she has a very active imagination. She is a vibrant personality, and it occurred to me that Kelman is completely isolated from female contact (he lost his wife, and is bringing his sons up alone), so that his contact with this woman could be quite moving, and he may depend on it slightly. So all those things and that pre-history, informs their relationship on the stage. And what we learn during the course of the play is that they have similarities, in their contemplation of suicide for instance. There seems to be a bond there; he seems to know what she is talking about and is holding a mirror up to her. As Nora walks out the door we have to presume what becomes of her. How does she survive? I would think she certainly goes to the margins of society. How does a woman who walks out on her husband, in those days, feed herself? How is she viewed by society? She is viewed as an outcast and as an outsider. She has a view of Neil Kelman from the start of the play, that he is a pariah. He has an important line that he says to her: “You know nothing of people.” I don’t think he says it in an accusatory way. He says it in a way that he is surprised at her innocence – coming from bitter experience of how he has been treated.

Kelman never appears on the stage with Thomas. How have you contended with the idea that there is a relationship between these two characters, yet they never meet?
We haven’t improvised around that, and we haven’t spoken about it. But in my thinking time, and in my invented biography, of events etc, I have imagined what that relationship is about. Perhaps me speaking in my accent marks me as different in Thomas Vaughn’s eyes – I don’t sound like him, or his peers, such as Dr Rank. Maybe his politics are different within the Cabinet – on finance or on
policy. And the way he conducts himself, maybe he is not as adherent to manners, because he sees the hypocrisy of manners, and that manners can sometimes mask all kinds of filth. I think that when you are on the margins of society, you see certain things more clearly; the Emperor is not wearing clothes. Kelman can see this because he is the malcontent.

In terms of your relationship with Christine, how have you approached your first scene, where you have come to the house just to see Thomas presumably, and you walk into the library to find Nora, and with her, Christine – the first time that you have seen her for twenty years?It’s a huge problem this. How we have resolved it, is that Tara, who plays Christine, is hiding and I don’t see her. But it’s a real dilemma. It was suggested that I might not recognise her, but I was quite insistent that she has always been the burning centre of Kelman’s life, and even if they hadn’t seen each other for say, forty years, if you’ve been in love with a woman that long, you just know her; it’s not necessarily physical recognition, it’s a sense. It’s a cheat that she hides, but if we didn’t do this, she would be in full view during the scene, and we would have to play it with me knowing who she was. There is possibly a virtue in playing it like that, because it destabilises Kelman. But it was decided not to play it like that, because it detracted from the plot. Whether we are right or wrong, I’m not sure. I may not even be sure when we finish the run, and I may never be sure,
ever!

Are there any other discoveries that you have made so far about the play that you think might be useful to a student group work-shopping the piece?
I am having great difficulty in the scene between Christine and Kelman in the third act. It’s pivotal to the plot, but in order for that to happen, my character has to undergo a huge emotional transformation during the scene. I don’t think we’ve resolved that so far, either because I’m not acting well enough yet, or because the version of the scene that we have is not correct. But I think it has always been regarded as the problem scene. For Kelman to walk into the room and say to Christine, “I hate you”, and then, “ I love you”, is great in theory, but in practice – how do we do it and make it look believable from a human point of view? It has to happen because in the plot, Kelman retracts his letter, but I’m really struggling to make that journey during the scene; it is a real, active challenge.

http://www.donmarwarehouse.com/p25.html for further reading!
Edited by ecclesno9, Jul 9 2009, 07:55 PM.
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