Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon wrote a new post 5 years, 9 months ago

‘It feels like the same old exploitations, enacted now in the name of art’: Alison Croggon on Milo Rau’s La Reprise
Content warning: racist and homophobic violence

Swiss director Milo Rau has been called […]

Tony Knight replied 5 years, 9 months ago

Thank you, Alison. You have articulated my concerns in regard to this production. Yes – extremely well done, but I found it ultimately rather repellent and questionable. It was not intended as ‘good night in the theatre’ and it most certainly wasn’t as far as I’m concerned. As a gay activist I don’t need to be lectured or subjected to overwhelming violence against other gay men and women. Nor do I believe, perhaps naively, perhaps hopefully, that others in the audience need such a violent production to highlight this matter. Subsequently, I did focus on how this message was being convayed. I don’t get all the nudity – what was all that about? I also question the graphic detail. They want it to be ‘real’, but within a theatrical environment. These worked as binary opposites to me and difficult to reconcile. I’m reminded on what The Player says in Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – how a ‘real’ execution doesn’t work, it doesn’t bring in the audience, whilst a ‘theatrical’ execution always works because it plays on the imagination. There wasn’t much left to one’s immagination in this violent show.
- Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 9 months ago
  
  I suppose…the reality of that violence, that we see constructed in front of us, says something about how violence is constructed and represented? But yeah, for me it just said that we have the power to construct this violence, whether it’s real or imagined. It’s interesting how that violence for me obliterated everything else in the rest of the show…there were moments that were tender and gentle, after all.

Samsara replied 5 years, 9 months ago

Hi Alison, you need to check the spelling for Niklas in the review 🙂
- Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 9 months ago
  
  Thanks Samsara – to think I’ve spent all these years spelling it right! Corrected now.

Samsara replied 5 years, 9 months ago

Hi Alison,

I love this paragraph:

‘It will be a response. You will bring to your response everything that you brought to the theatre: your attention, your knowledge, your experience, your sensibility, your life. You know that the less you bring, the less you’ll have to respond with. You don’t care about your opinion. Everyone has an opinion. That’s not what matters. You don’t want to be the kind of critic who doesn’t pay attention, whose responses are crafted out of their preconceptions or vanity or ignorance. You want to be a critic who thinks with all of her body, in the present and in the past.’

It sums up everything I believe about reviewing and why I do it. Thank you for articulating this so beautifully 🙂

Regards
Samsara
- Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 9 months ago
  
  Thank you, Samsara! 🙂

Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 10 months ago

Thank you! Corrected.
Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 10 months ago

Thanks Al! As you have probably guessed, I know a bit more about the Rosicrucians and alchemy and so on than I know about the musical history of opera 🙂 I understand e flat in the overture and the opera also references Masonic symbolism?

Matthew Peckham replied 5 years, 10 months ago

For years, many of us have dreamt, argued, speculated and written about the “Great Australian Drama/Musical/Opera”. For some reason, iconic history is looked-to for the source, and Ned Kelly, Eureka and Gallipoli pop up again. So unnecessary, and such bad stories for the stage.

Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 10 months ago

Hi David – Yes, that inner circular monologue goes on and on in my head too. Despair is paralysing and guarantees our diminishing futures… Maybe what art can do is give people courage, especially to imagine that things might be otherwise, which is not a small thing.

Tom Gutteridge replied 5 years, 10 months ago

Thanks for this, Alison. I was completely mystified by the design. Why the black tiled floor? Why the constantly gliding trucks and objects? The piece seems to be about someone who comes and stays, but nothing stayed put for more than a couple of minutes. I felt sorry for Miriam Margolyes who i thought did pretty well under the circumstances. I think a lot of the coldness was because the alienation that you describe in the two protagonists was never seen against an environment (however competed over it might have been). I suspect that Alan Bennett understands the dynamics of territoriality quite well and wrote them into the play. They just never appeared in this production.
- Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 10 months ago
  
  Hi Tom – the design certainly dominated the whole production! It’s interesting to compare the film – it’s on Netflix if you’re interested – which does give an idea of relationship between them (as well as the environment around them) that is missing here. I doubt I’d love this play even in the best circumstances, but it should be a lot more lively and human!

Sarah Walker replied 5 years, 11 months ago

My goodness, this sounds just transcendently wonderful. Gosh, I hope it gets a return season.
- Alison Croggon replied 5 years, 11 months ago
  
  I do too! I’d see it again tomorrow

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