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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Rough Crossing by Tom Stoppard Rough Crossing. L et us agree: theatre does not have to be about big ideas. Let us accept it can be a brilliantly executed artifice, as with Michael Frayn's Noises Off, also playing this season at Pitlochry. Let us acknowledge it can be lightweight, frivolous and throwaway – fun for fun's sake. But having allowed ourselves that, can we also make a case for Rough Crossing? What is the purpose, whether it be ambitious or modest, of Tom Stoppard's free reworking of Ferenc Molnár's The Play at the Castle? Is there any reason it should exist? Set on a transatlantic liner in the early 1930s, Rough Crossing is about a musical playwriting partnership who have to knock their new work into shape before its Broadway premiere. The only problem – and how tediously minor a problem it is – is that the composer's fiancee, who is also the leading lady, appears to be rekindling her interest in the leading man. If they can persuade the composer he has overheard a script rehearsal and not an amorous heart-to-heart, they just might get the show finished. There is nothing especially wrong with Richard Baron's production that a little less shouting and less of a mismatch in the casting wouldn't cure, yet even by the standards of daft comedy, the play simply fails to entertain. Once Stoppard has fielded a few meta-theatrical ideas, strung out a joke about a speech impediment and endlessly repeated a gag about the waiter always getting the writer's drink, we are left with nothing but a bunch of self-satisfied toffs, a bad play-within-a-play and an inconsequential romantic tiff. You could write it off as a dull night out, if the play didn't seem so smugly enamoured of its own emptiness. That makes it not just pointless, but offensive, too. Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing at The Lowry, Theatre Review. Some lesser known works of famous writers can be delight when dusted-off and given fresh life on stage. And on the face of it, this revival of Tom Stoppard’s 1984 comedy, Rough Crossing has a lot to commend it. As a dramatic writer it seems there is no accolade Stoppard hasn’t achieved. He won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with Shakespeare in Love, and five of his plays have won Broadway’s coveted Tony Awards. The chance to see one of the neglected comedies from his vast back- catalogue is an audience draw itself. On top of that, producer Bill Kenwright has brought together a top cast, including household name John Partridge, who played Christian Clarke in EastEnders and this year took the Celebrity Masterchef crown. The backstage team has high credentials. Director Rachel Kavanaugh is fresh from directing a Christmas season at the RSC and brings with her rising star Charlie Stemp, who recently took the lead in her Chichester Festival Theatre production of Half a Sixpence. And for the icing on the cake name-dropping – legendary composer Andre Previn wrote three original songs performed in the play. [L-R] John Partridge (Turai), Rob Ostlere (Adam), Matthew Cottle (Gal) – Rough Crossing – UK Tour – Pamela Raith Photography. The opening is promising. Colin Richmond has created a luxurious and spacious 1930s cruise ship setting, with double-deck cabins. There is also an air of elegance in his costumes, but the attire of the guests is where the characters’ sophistication ends. For a comedy we are not expecting more than a light-hearted narrative, but the chit-chat at times is so vacuous we wonder if the story and sadly the gags have been lost over-board. The general gist is there are two playwrights, Turai (John Partridge) and Gal (Matthew Cottle) who have until the ocean liner reaches New York to complete a new script and rehearse the show ready for opening night. The problem is they don’t yet have an ending and worse still, fear their whole company may dissolve after shenanigans between their leading actress and actor on board ship. To add to the complication, their sensitive composer is engaged to the leading lady and overhears her talking intimately with her leading man. Meanwhile, young waiter Dvornichek, played with a lively spark by Charlie Stemp, floats in and out of the party causing chaos on his unsteady sea-legs. Unfortunately, he is given the same joke each time he comes on stage. It might be worded in slightly different ways, but effectively it is the same gag and Stemp deserves a medal for managing to stay so chirpy as he delivers it for the umpteenth time. [L-R] Rob Ostlere (Adam), John Partridge (Turai), Matthew Cottle (Gal), Issy Van Randwyck (Natasha) – Rough Crossing – UK Tour – Pamela Raith Photography. Cottle too is a master of deadpan comic timing. He can get a chuckle out of the most casual lines and smallest gestures. But even getting him to absurdly chomp on a carrot for much of one scene cannot distract from the sparse material the cast have to work with. John Partridge has a strong stage presence. He looks the part and brings the necessary energy to the role, at one-point leaping onto and doing a belly slide along a piano. Yet, for all the cast’s brilliant efforts it is not enough to save this sinking ship. [L-R] Rob Ostlere (Adam), Issy Van Randwyck (Natasha), John Partridge (Turai), Matthew Cottle (Gal) – Rough Crossing – UK Tour – Pamela Raith Photography. We’re left feeling there is perhaps a good reason why Rough Crossing has been neglected. If you’re keen to see all Stoppard’s works performed, then this production is likely as good as any you will see. For it is Stoppard’s material that falls flat in this comedy, proving even geniuses aren’t always geniuses all of the time. Rough Crossing is at The Lowry , Salford Quays from 18-23 February 2019. Rough Crossing by Tom Stoppard. 5.18.11 Weekend Preview May 19-24 Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller. Review by SETH ROGOVOY, editor-in-chief and critic-at-large of BERKSHIRE LIVING MAGAZINE. (Lenox, Mass.) -- Occasionally Shakespeare & Company goes off book, so to speak, and tackles non-Shakespearean work (actually, more than occasionally, and even more than occasionally this summer). When the company does, it's often a welcome break. And this summer, they could not have chosen better than to assay ROUGH CROSSING , a farce by Tom Stoppard, adapted from Ferenc Molnar�s Play at the Castle and P.G. Wodehouse�s The Play�s the Thing , but as is evident from both titles, solidly grounded in or influenced by Shakespeare himself. Shakespearean allusions abound in Stoppard's script -- as well as borrowings from Gilbert & Sullivan, who cast a dark shadow over the entire proceedings -- which is given a riotously funny realization by director Kevin G. Coleman and the cream of the crop of Shakespeare & Company's comic actors, including Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Jason Asprey, Bill Barclay, Jonathan Croy, Malcolm Ingram, and LeRoy McClain. Set in the 1930s, with lyrics by Stoppard and music by Andre Previn, the hilarious, repartee-filled farce gets underway aboard The SS Italian Castle, an ocean liner bound for New York from Southampton, and tells the story of a musical comedy team who must come up with an ending for their newest show before their ship docks. However, the aging and randy starlet, Natasha, played with lascivious delight by Aspenlieder, gets caught by her �love-struck� French piano player boyfriend, Adam, in a compromising position with her much older co-star, Ivor, played with perfect haughtiness by Malcolm Ingram. Adam�s heartbreak causes the sudden onset of an extremely comical speech impediment. The plot thickens when the playwrights/collaborators Turai and Gal, played with perfect comic timing by the duo of Croy and Asprey, have to concoct an elaborate scheme to keep Adam on the ship and finish the musical. Weaving (literally) in and out of the story is the cabin steward Dvornichek, played with comic wisdom by newcomer LeRoy McClain. But the plot is not really the point here, as it rarely is in farce. Rather, it's the sheer pleasure in the comedy, the pratfalls, the acting, the songs, and finally, Stoppard's witty script, which is given all due respect, that makes this ROUGH CROSSING not only smooth, but essential theatergoing. Rough Crossing. The co authors, the composer and most of the cast of a comedy destined for Broadway are simultaneously trying to finish and rehearse the play while crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner. Tom Stoppard's hilarious play has been freely adapted from Ferenc Molnar's classic farce Jatek a Kastelyban. "Adaptation in Stoppard's terms means finding a sympathetic text and using it as a s. Отзывы - Написать отзыв. Rough crossing / freely adapted from Ferenc Molnar's Play at the castle [by] Tom Stoppard. Stoppard has been ransacking gems from bygone treasures of European comedy and drama and has used these pieces as starting points for his own brand of fun. This latest is from a play by Ferenc Molnar . Читать весь отзыв. Plays similar to or like Rough Crossing. 1976 comedic abridgement of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, written by Tom Stoppard. Excerpt from Dogg's Hamlet, condenses the original Hamlet, including all the best-known scenes, into approximately 13 minutes of on-stage action. Wikipedia. Play by British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard, first produced in 2015.