Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

Author: Jack Thorne
Original title: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two
Pages: 337
Edition Language: English
Series: Harry Potter #8
Format: Paperback
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Goodreads

Blurb:    
   Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.   
         While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
  
My thoughts: 
   I have heard only bad stuff about the book. Maybe it was because I had no expectations about this going in but I really loved this. The first thing is that this is a play, not a novel and therefore I don't believe it should be judged as a book. And if you are lacking experience in reading those, the book can be really dull and  pointless. I am not the biggest play lover, but I can imagine a lot of stuff in the absence of long descriptions and explanations. So the text was not dry and plain for me, I had a nice coming of age story in front of me with childhood favorites. Reading this script made me so badly want to see the play live.  
     I enjoyed the story, the new and old characters, the echoes of the past and just everything about this story.  I completely respect that people disliked this, the story is lacking a lot; it is not so much of the canonical Harry Potter and not overwhelming, so I can easily imagine how a Harry Potter fan be disappointed with the book.

Rating:

        4/5 

Theather: The Urn on the Empty Stage

Author: Martin Čičvák
Original title: Urna na prázdném jevišti/Urna na prázdnom javisku
Director: Martin Čičvák
Genres: Drama, Comedy
Cast: Veronika Žilková, Lenka Skopalová, Ivana Uhlířová a Sára Venclovská
Time: 110 min
Premiere: 2 October 2016, Činoherní klub, Prague

Summary:
     Three actresses of different generations and the opera soprano gathered together on an empty stage with the black urn in the middle of it. In the urn are the ashes of the great theater director whom they came to pay a last tribune to.
     The story line develops around the attempt to fulfill the director’s last wish: to spread his ashes on the stage. The increasing uneasiness and inability to agree on anything reveals the mutual animosity of the former love rivals.

About the author: 

     Martin Čičvák is a theater director and playwright from Slovakia. After finishing studies in Brno JAMU (CZ) he studied in Darlington College of Arts in UK. Čičvák is actively working with Czech and Slovak theaters, and was working as well in Slovenia, Serbia and Great Britain. In 2000 he became on the of the main theater directors in Prague’s Činoherní klub theater. Apart from play he is also directing opera. 

About the play: 

      The great director loved his actresses and they loved him back. He meant a lot to them and they were thankful for their carriers. Together with him they would like to bury the memories of traumas, failures and mutual hatred. What unites those 4 women is the ambiguous relationship to the deceased: on the one hand they admire him and thankful for the successful roles and mutual work; on the other hand they could not stand his authoritative attitude, they reproach him for love affairs and not able to fulfill their acting ambitions.

      The play is full of the stereotypes of the acting profession: inability to suppress your passions, naivety and foolishness, certainty of your talent and rightness. The most funny and most difficult for me were the parts where the actresses cites roles form old performances twisting together the actresses and her personage’s character. It is quite fascinating to watch how they project their roles on their relationship with the director.  

Themes: 
Stereotyped vision on acting profession:
Frankly only people who are working in the theater know what is going on behind the curtain. So most of the time people just guess and try to predict behavior of actors. This play is full of general clichés like stupidity and shallowness of actors and their uncontrollable strive for success. On the other hand we see the drama’s going on with insults, frustration and humiliation with which actor need to cope with and continue to perform their best. 

Gender inequality:  

On the surface comes out such a problematic issue as gender inequality in acting profession. Women are taken into consideration as “muse” in the best scenario and in the worst as mere mistress. The main characters do not seem to fight against this inequality and prefer to take the role of the mistress in spite of the cost. 

Final thoughts: 

      I really liked the play, thought I met some challenges while watching it. Multiple references to theatrical pieces as Macbeth, Medea and other were not so easy to gasp with my level of language. But I was able to grasp the allusion and references.

      Another interesting thing about the play is its genre: It is not clear what it is drama with hints of humor, comedy with dramatic set up. The playwright leaves the spectator to decide himself, but adding an extra twist with detective line.

      The scenery is very simple, to be more exact they consists of only black urn. And I like it. Nothing distracts from brilliantly written dialog between actresses, how they are trying to find common solution, quarreling, getting hysterical, accusing each other and then uniting in mutual hatred towards deceased. The dialogs are full of black humor and exaggerations.

Theather: The Deep Blue Sea

Autour: Terence Rattigan
Original title: The Deep Blue Sea
Director: Carrie Cracknell
Genres: Drama
Cast: Hellen McCrory (Hester Collyer), Tom Burke (Freddie Page), Nick Fletcher (Mr. Miller)
Time: 120 min
Premiere: 8.06.2016, Lyttelton Theater: National Theater, London 

Summary:
1952, East London. The play starts when Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours after a failed attempt to commit suicide by gassing herself. Little by little details of her prior life with a husband William Collyer, whom she left for a former RAF pilot Freddie Page start to surface. Their relationship was quite passionate and physical, but quickly come to the point of desperation and dissatisfaction. The aftershock of her suicide attempt ruins the remains of this relationship. By the end of the day Hester is left alone with the question: to live or not to live? She chooses to live, but not without the help of an ex-doctor, another resident of the tenement house, Mr. Miller.

About the author:
Ragtigan was born in 1911. He left university in 1934 to dedicate his time to playwriting.  He was one of England's most popular mid-twentieth century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He is known for such works as The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954) and many others.  The plays whiten during WW2 turned him into a celebrity. After the war his plays started to bear more autobiographic character.

About the play:
Quite interesting is how the play was conceived. Rattigan was gay with numerous lovers, but no long-term partners. In 1939 he met an actor Keneth Morgan with whom he had a relationship. He swamped Keneth his lover with gifts, emotions and money. Morgan however hardly tolerated Rattigan's dominance and in 1949 left dramatist and moved in with another man Alec Ross. Rattigan was expecting that his lover would return to him and comfort he provided. However, in April 1949 Morgan died by gas self-intoxication after a quarrel with his new friend.
This tragedy brought the idea of a new play, which starts with the scene of a body lying in from of the gas fireplace. The next 3 years he worked on it. In the first version of "The Deep Blue Sea" the story of the unhappy relation between the two men took place, but in the 50s, when homosexuality was taken as "social and moral problem similar to heroin addiction", this kind of play would never be staged. The picture of the unhappy woman living with a lover was much more attractive. Now Hester is considered one of the most important theater female figures, which proves the timelessness of Rattigan's plays, in which he describes deep feelings about the unbalanced relationship.

About the cast:
Helen McCrory. This is the second time I saw Helen on the stage, and again she performed in a play directed by Carrie Cracknell, and again she had deeply disturbed and unhappy character person. But what a performance! She is so talented that she can show the transformation from quiet happiness to aggressive insanity in seconds. Her face is so vivid and emotional expressions are so meticulously elaborated that you can see she is in a different league from everyone else on stage.

Themes:
Unequal love: Hester falls in love with Freddie Page. For this passionate obsession she leaves her successful husband, friends and environment she used to and finds herself in need, humiliation and long-termed depression. Freddie is not the type of a man, who can answer her passion and this understanding drains her strength pushing her to a suicide. Freddie is also not the villain here, he is trying to give as much as he can, but he just does not feel that kind of love towards Hester.
Broken lives: We find here 3 victims of the society in the 50s. First is eventually Hester, who is “living in sin” with her lover, and who left her prosperous husband for a shameful connection. The only way for her to regain her place in the society is to return to her husband apologetically and be forgiven.
Another victim is Freddie, a former RAF pilot, who cannot find his place in the world after the war. He is too old for flying and besides, he drinks a lot, there is no other occupation for him; he lost his path and cannot adjust to the contemporary life.
And the final victim is the sad, shambling figure of Mr. Miller. He is a tenant and former doctor who has been sent to prison for unknown to us crime. Mr. Miller assists Hester during her first attempt and prevents the second by talking her out of it with such desperation, sadness and unhappiness in his voice that even without knowing exactly why he was sent to jail the auditorium can feel that a lot of wrong has been done to this character.

Final thoughts:
Without doubts Terence Rattigan managed to capture the depth of despair in what we found the main character Hester. Together with a brilliant performance of Helen McCrory and director Carrie Cracknell this play shows the complexity of unbalanced relationship, the dependence of a woman on a toxic love without being able to get anything from it. Sure, the character is a victim of her own decisions, but either small or big decisions can change our lives so drastically, that a person will be only one step away from falling into the deep blue sea.

May 2016 Wrap up

This is the list of my June activities:

Read books:

read: 6 / listen: 0 / pages: 1889

1. Ian Fleming "From Russia, with Love" p. 259
2. Jo Nesbø "The Redbreast" p. 576
3. Ian Fleming "Dr. No" p.336 -  Review
4. Michael Punke "The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge" p.272
5. Ian Fleming "Goldfinger" p. 264
6. Ian Fleming "For Your Eyes Only" p.182 

Movie watched:
1. The Jungle Book (2016) - Review
2. the Huntsman: Winter's war (2016)
3. Captain America: the first Avanger (2011)
4. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
5. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
6. Drop Dead Diva 3 season (2011)

Theater visited:
1. Hangmen NT LIVE review will follow
2. Before Sunset Ciniherniclub (Před západem slunce) review will follow

Sport events watched:
1. Hockey world championship 2016 (Moscow - St. Peterburg)
2. UEFA Europe League Final 2016
3. UEFA Champions League Final 2016
4. Staropramen Cup Ladvi Prague (Staropramen Cool Český pohár mužů a žen) 28-29 2016

The Lonesome West is so lonely

The Lonesome West

Author:  Martin McDonagh                     
Pages: 60
Edition Language: English
Series: The Leenane Trilogy #2
Genres: drama, comedy, play
Goodreads 

Theater:
The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh, directed by Ondřej Sokol. With Jaromír Dulava (Coleman Connor), Sandra Černodrinská (Girleen Kelleherova), Ondřej Sokol (Father Welsh).  Činoherní klub

Author:
      Мартин Макдонах - cовременный ирландский драматург, сценарист и кинорежиссёр
Мартин МакДонах родился в Лондоне в 1970 году. Брат Мартина, Джон, пытался стать писателем. Эти попытки заставили Мартина попробовать писать самому. В 1997 году пришёл успех: пьеса «Красавица из Линэна», написанная годом ранее за восемь дней, была поставлена на Бродвее и, помимо известности, принесла автору театральные премии «Evening Standard» и «Тони».

 Play:
      «Сиротливый Запад» (Osiřelý západ) — пьеса идущая с 2002 в театре Cinoherní klub жестокая и мрачная комедия. История двух братьев, эмоционально обделённых и морально незрелых держится на бессмысленных взаимных оскорблениях и отборной брани. Ни Вэлин, ни Коулмэн не способны сделать уступки и глухи к чувствам друг друга. Священник отец Уэлш делает многочисленные безрезультатные попытки примирить братьев и заставить их прийти к взаимопониманию. Однако вражда берет свое начало в детстве и братья хорошо оточили наиболее болезненные приёмы. Коулмен и Вэлин чаще всего просто омерзительны в своей мелочности, порой смешны, но иногда проступает какая-то человеческая жалость к ним. Перипетии их взаимоотношений, непримиримость характеров - все неизбежно тащит героев к пропасти, подталкивает к трагическому финалу.
      Роль отца Уэлша - пожалуй, самая трагическая в пьесе. Священник с затянувшимся кризисом веры, страдающий алкоголизмом, кончает жизнь самоубийством, закладывая свою душу ради озлобленных и жестоких братьев Конноров, стремительно ломающих друг другу жизнь. Нелегко преодолеть отчуждение, замешанное на годах непонимания, тяжёлом быте, пустых обидах и убийстве, но всё-таки они предпринимают попытку восстановить отношения - ведь иначе душа отца Уэлша будет гореть в аду.
      Пьеса захватывает с самой первой сцены. Забавно поставленные драки, грубость и жестокость людей сочетается с острой комедийностью, заставляя зрителей пребывать в экстремальных состояниях от острой жалости до искреннего негодования.

Quotes:

Вэлин: Ты слышал новость?
Коулмэн: Да. Это ужасно, не так ли?
Вэлин: Это позор. Это полный позор и больше ничего. Нельзя исключить из соревнований целую девичью футбольную команду.
Коулмэн: Во всяком случае, не в долбаном полуфинале.
Вэлин: Верно, никогда. Если ты должен удалить игроков — удаляй, но по одному за их индивидуальные нарушения. Ты не должен выбрасывать всех их оптом да ещё через семь минут после начала матча, так что они плача пошли домой к своим мамочкам.
Коулмэн: Команда из Святой Джозэфины прошла только через выход из состязаний нашей команды и только поэтому. Если у них было бы хоть какое-то понятие о чести, они отказались бы от их места в финале и отдали бы его нам.
Вэлин: Я надеюсь, они проиграют в финале.
Коулмэн: Я тоже надеюсь, что они проиграют в финале. Тем более теперь, когда ихний вратарь в коме они обязательно проиграют.
Вэлин: Нет, их вратарь уже давно вышла из своей комы. Она сейчас на интенсивной терапии.
Коулмэн: Так она притворялась? Нас исключили из всех соревнований вообще без всякой причины? Я надеюсь, она опять впадёт в свою кому и сдохнет.
Вэлин: Точно так. Я надеюсь, что она опять впадёт в свою кому и сдохнет. (Пауза). Посмотри-ка на нас — мы согласны.

 

Author:
      Martin McDonagh is a London-born Irish playwright whose first play The Beauty Queen of Leenane was the 1996 winner of the George Devine Award. It also won the Writer's Guild Award for Best Fringe Play and the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. The play was nominated for six Tony awards, of which it won four, and the Laurence Olivier Award.

Play:
      "The Lonesome West" is a cruel and dark comedy staged in Cinoherní klub from 2002. The story of emotionally poor and morally handicapped two brothers is based on long trail of mutual crimes between them and abusive words. Either Coleman or Valene is able to yield and is deaf to each other's feelings.
      The priest Father Welsh is making multiple fruitless attempts to bring the brothers together. But the grudge is deep rooted in childhood and they are very efficient in hurting each other. Coleman and Valene are more often repulsive in their pettiness, sometimes are funny, but at times simple human sympathy towards them is appearing. Drunkenness, hopelessness and petty vindictiveness prevail in their lives and these all drag them to a downfall, push them to a tragic end.
      Father Welsh character is probably the most tragic figure in the play. The young priest in faith crisis suffering from drinking problems drowns himself and puts his soul in the hands of bitter and hard-hearted brothers who are destroying their lives rapidly. It is difficult to overcome alienation stirred on years of misunderstanding, hard living, vain insults and murder, but they are trying to bring themselves together, otherwise Father Welsh’s soul will burn in hell for eternity.
      The play captures you from the firth scene.  Funny staged fights, brutality and cruelty of characters are nicely blended with comedial touches, making theater-goers experience extreme emotions from acute compassion to sincere indignation.

Quotes:

Valene:     Did you hear the news?
Coleman:  I did. Isn’t it awful.
Valene:    It’s a disgrace. It’s an outright disgrace, and nothing but. You can’t go sending off
an entire girl’s football team, sure.
Coleman: Not in a semi-fecking-final anyways.
Valene:     Not at any time, sure. If you have to send people off you send them off one at a time, for their individual offences. You don’t go slinging the lot of them off wholesale, and only seven minutes in, so they go crying home to their mammys.
Coleman: St Josephine’s have only got through by default, and nothing but default. If they had any honour they’d not take their place in the final at all and be giving it to us.
Valene: I hope they lose the final.
Coleman: The same as that, I hope they lose the final. Sure, with their goalie in a coma they’re bound to.
Valene: No, their goalie came out of her coma a while ago there. Intensive care is all she’s in now. 
Coleman: She was fecking feigning? Getting us expelled from all competitions for no reason at all.  I hope she lapses into her coma and dies.
Valene: The same as that. I hope she lapses into her coma and dies. Look at us, we’re in agreement.

Rating 

     7/10