Just so damned good
February 16, 2012
On Sunday my wife, my daughter and I went the V&A for a screening of their archival filming of Cardenio from last season. They have funding to do this for a select number of shows each year and are building a library of interesting productions from the country's best theatres. The films are available for booking free of charge, and the V&A has programmed a season of free screenings to open them up to a wider audience.
The RSC themselves make an archive recording of every show; I don't know how many camera set-ups they use nor how sophisticated is the editing, because I've never seen one. But I was astonished at the quality of what we saw on Sunday. It is a condition of the arrangement that the V&A film only a single performance, but the choice of shot, the framing, and the editing were pretty first class.
Greg (Doran) gave as short introduction to the production that had been so long in gestation for him and so triumphantly delivered, seemingly without need of any painkillers.
I'm not normally bothered about watching myself on film or TV - it's like watching someone else, really. But I was somewhat trepidatious about seeing a stage performance, that I had inhabited for so long and had under my control, preserved in a medium for which it was not intended.
I clung onto my daughter's hand as I heard my entrance cue... but it was thrilling because the show was just so damned good. Now that I'm working so intensively with another company it was great to be reminded of everybody's terrific performances last year. Tim Mitchell's chiascuro lighting was ravishing, Niki Turner 's costumes looked brilliant and so so right. And of course a whole bunch of us were there to cuddle and cackle in the pub afterwards.
by Nick Day
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