Owner: Jennifer Ehle blog URL:http://jenniferehle.blogspot.com Join Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 12:05:19 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: A fan blog about actress Jennifer Ehle, best known for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice adaptation. Features reviews, latest news about her career, photos, forum, and an exclusive interview with questions sent in by fa Site statistics:Click here
No one say the T word 2006-10-22 14:16:00 Too late! Munkustrap of BWW writes a love letter of a review for Voyage.Get your tickets now. Once it wins Best Play this spring, it will be only a thing of the past.This is a once in a lifetime event. It's not just play - it's three part structure (yes, requiring 3 different tickets) qualifies it for an event.Stoppard's new play is a masterpiece. It is brilliantly and beautifully written. When you are sitting in the theatre watching this miracle unfold, you will feel like you have literally died and gone to heaven. I experienced pure awe and bliss this afternoon, and it will absolutely go down as one of my favorite theatrical experiences ever.The entire cast, from top to bottom, is exemplory. Pristine, even. Billy Crudup is brilliant as the well...brilliant, awkward Vissarion Belinsky. He is so strong, so solid, and just plain wonderful. David Manis is clearly still finding his way in the role, after having just replaced Easton a few nights ago. His performance is still undeniably
More from Friday's show 2006-10-21 17:10:00 Nice and long report from mabel of BWW. I saw the show as well last night. Just beautiful. I was sitting next to Veuve, and at intermission he asked me how I was liking and then the biggie "why?". For me, on a first viewing, it was a show that just evoked a sort of visceral response, and while I was totally swept up by the piece, I couldn't quite articulate why. I suppose that's a big part of why I was so taken by it. Stoppard's work is just so rich. There's so much to dig into. I can't wait to go back and re-read Voyage ...[...]A few other random thoughts...The opening was just stunning. I won't ruin it for those who haven't seen it yet, but what a way to start the show out with a visual punch!The lighting was gorgeous. It'll be interesting to see Shipwreck and Salvage, as there are seperate designers for each piece. I'm sure they'll all fit together seamlessly, but it would be an interesting thing to take note of, for those going to the marathons.[...]Plimpton and Ehle were Read more:Friday
"Brilliant piece of theater" 2006-10-21 08:11:00 Latest report from Voyage by WithoutATrace at BroadwayWorld:I'm about to go to sleep, but wanted to post a few quick thoughts on tonights performance.This is definitely a brilliant piece
of theater
. Though some parts (for me) were hard to follow due to the many many characters to keep track of and the history behind it all, the language is absolutely gorgeous and the acting is fabulous.Billy Crudup stole the show as Vissarion Belinsky. He owned the stage every time he was on (which was a lot) and even got exit applause after two of his long monologues. Just fantastic.Martha Plimpton was incredible as Varenka. I loved her in SHINING CITY last year in her small role, but in Act 1 of VOYAGE, she was really able to show that she is a fantastic actress. Such stage presence and excellent diction as well. It's hard to keep your eyes off of her when she's on stage.Ethan Hawke as Michael Bakunin was very good. I kind of had to warm up to him becuase his voice seemed a little off this evening Read more:Brilliant
Alpha Male DVD pre-orders 2006-10-20 16:09:00 The Alpha
Male DVD is due to be released on 22 January, 2007. Pre-orders
are available now. Also, word from Verve is that Alpha Male is eligible for the 2007 BAFTAs and so will be considered. Emma is hoping for an Oscar/BAFTA nod for Ms Ehle in the film. By the way, we've set up a couple of Amazon affilate stores for the UK and US.
LCT blog updated 2006-10-20 10:25:00 At last. They've just set up a comments function as well.
First Night JittersPosted October 18, 2006
An actress friend of mine once told me that she threw up before every performance, a statement I took as exaggerated until I walked in on her once just before curtain. It turned out she wasn't kidding. I have no idea whether any cast members of The Coast of Utopia engage in a similar practice, and of course I wouldn't, even in a backstage blog, broadcast that fact even if I did know. I mention my friend simply to indicate that actors must find ways to deal with their nerves, and that, in my experience, the better the actor the more likely that nerves play a part in the performance.
Last night, at the first preview of Voyage, there was plenty of nervousness, and at a cast and crew supper at O'Neals restaurant after the curtain rang down, David Manis, who plays the senior serf Semyon, asked me if I'd noticed it. I have to confess that, except from an occasional hand tremor on the
Lincoln Center Theater Review 2006-10-20 07:20:00 Again a case of good news/bad news. The good: the fall 2006 issue of the LincolnCenter
Theater Review is entirely dedicated to The Coast of Utopia. There are articles by Tom Stoppard, various scholars and writers, plus an excerpt of Turgenev. Nerdilicious, no? The bad news is that so far, only the text of the first article can be read (Stoppard on Isaiah Berlin); the other tantalising links go to blank pages. Edit: we jumped the gun a bit; the webmaster says that the site's temporarily live for testing and should be fully functional by the end of the day.Another BWW forumer, NYadgal, just returned from tonight's preview of Voyage. She says that the show's an "extraordinary piece of theatre" in remarkable shape for the third preview despite a few technical glitches, that Mr Easton's stand-in did a wonderful job, and that Billy Crudup's perf was masterful. Also of interest is the list of background reading she excerpts from the Playbill:'Russian Thinkers' by Isaiah Berlin'The Ro
Update on Richard Easton 2006-10-20 04:25:00 The Canadian Press reports a recovery.NEW YORK (AP) - The Tony-award winning actor RichardEaston
was recuperating at a hospital Thursday after he collapsed on stage during a preview performance of the Broadway play "The Coast of Utopia." The Montreal-born actor, 73, fainted Wednesday at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater while making a dramatic exit near the end of the first act of Tom Stoppard's 2002 trilogy. The show was halted as Easton's co-star, Ethan Hawke, asked for help from any doctors in the audience. Easton was hospitalized, but appeared to recover quickly, said the theatre's spokesman, Philip Rinaldi. Read more:Update
, Richard Easton
Joe Pye 2006-10-20 04:19:00
And thanks to "L" in the tagboard... at Press 53, there's a photo of John Ehle with Jennifer Ehle's dog, Joe Pye! On the same site, there's an audio interview with him, which is interesting.
"Solid" 2006-10-18 22:40:00 Update: yesterday the news broke at All That Chat that Richard Easton had collapsed onstage during the Oct 18 preview of Voyage. See here and BWW forum for initial responses. Later word from the NYT is that it was a "cardiac event" (not a heart attack - BWW) and that he is conscious and stable. Understudy David Manis will play his role until his return. We wish Mr Easton a speedy recovery! By now there is wide coverage of this event.Smartful Dodger at BroadwayWorld gives Voyage a thumbs-up:Saw last night's preview. A solid production, even right out of the gate. Recognizing that Stoppard is often better read than performed AND that it was a first preview, I'll forgive some of the pacing issues; I'm sure things will get tighter as the show seasons in coming weeks.There are some extraordinary bits of stagecraft, which I won't spoil; and, given that this is an epic story, the necessary "turntable" and "projection" elements are there and nicely used, creating some brilliant cinematic t Read more:Solid
Buckle up 2006-10-18 08:30:00 Here we go. The first reports from The Coast of Utopia are out! Voyage inspired Gwen to write her first ever blog post:I just came home from seeing the first in Tom Stoppard's COAST OF UTOPIA trilogy, The Voyage Out. I expected to like it; what I did not expect was to be so moved by it. I can't find the right metaphor to explain how the play affected me-- each one I try sounds like something icky. Infection. Parasite. Crawled under my skin. Why aren't there pleasant words in the English language to describe the experience of being possessed by a work of art?I hadn't read it, although I'd owned a copy of the first play since it debuted in London a few years ago-- my assistant at ASF went to London and raved about it, too. Still, I remembered that although I'd loved Invention of Love, it didn't read all that well, so I decided just to wait.I didn't even do any "prep" about the period, or even read the many essays up at the Lincoln Center page.You really don't need to.The Read more:Buckle
Bring on tomorrow 2006-10-16 09:12:00 Voyage previews start tomorrow
, October 17! Meanwhile, there's another review of the Pride and Prejudice collector's edition at DVDfile:The Video: How Does The Disc Look?First and foremost, this is the same set of transfers that appeared on the previously released DVD edition of Pride & Prejudice. The only improvement is that A&E excised the closing credits for each episode, creating a significantly more impressive overall flow. But some major color accuracy issues remain. Saturated greens and blues are hard to find. Everything seems to have been constrained toward the middle of the visual range. And grain is more visible than it should be. A questionable effort.The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?As is the case with virtually every BBC DVD release, the stereo mix is not important at all. Dialogue sounds fairly strong and every once in a while, like during the dancing sequences and outdoor scenes, there are fits and spurts of atmospherics and sound effects in the soundscape. But for
Nothing to see here, officer 2006-10-14 16:51:00 These are not vids of the Lasting Impressions and An Impromptu Walkabout extras from the Pride and Prejudice boxset. And these are not the direct links to said videos (rather large filesize). Perish the thought. And here's the full text* of the NYT article on The Coast of Utopia mentioned below. Quotage from Ms Ehle:As each actor agreed, others followed. Mr. O'Brien got just about everyone he asked for, including Billy Crudup, Martha Plimpton, David Harbour, Richard Easton, Josh Hamilton and Jennifer Ehle, who is playing three different roles in the plays. ("At first, until I saw the schedule," she said, "I thought that it was really inconceivable that I could do this") [more]Philip Boroff of Bloomberg previews Voyage:Previews begin next week at the Vivian Beaumont for the first installment of Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," a prestige Broadway production with this season's most daunting running time.The trilogy, 8 1/2 hours in all, has a cast of 44, including Billy Read more:Nothing
, officer
More love 2006-10-23 08:46:00 Courtesy of ultimateddy's LJ:
yes. yes. yes.Work in the traditional sense can hang itself.
Coast of Utopia is so incredible inspiring and beautiful and overwhelming. I just want to go back over and over and over.I'm doing Stoppard's suggested additional reading instead of even looking towards my stacks of books and papers. Political illuminates the personal and vice versa.
"Every work of art is the breath of a single eternal idea breathed by God into the inner life of the artist".
"It takes wit and courage to make our way while our way is making us, with no consolation to count on but art and the summer lightning of personal happiness... but if nothing is certain, everything is possible, and that's what gives us human dignity."
I forget how much theatre relaxes, strengthens and overwhelms most of my mind.
At BWW's "What's hot" listings, Utopia and Jennifer Ehle have been among the top searches for many days now.
Josie's sent in another batch of seven photos from around the
Coast of Utopia bits 2006-10-24 09:04:00 (thanks BS!)Broadway.com has box office stats for last week. Voyage filled the Vivian Beaumont to 90.54% capacity, grossing $280,898, making it the 4th from bottom "underdog". The Broadway.com page for The Coast
of Utopia
also says that seats for the three marathon performances are sold out.There's a post at Martha Plimpton's blog recounting what happened the night of Richard Easton's collapse (it was indeed her onstage with Ethan Hawke, not Amy Irving as reported elsewhere) and providing an update on his condition (going well). A couple of brief "saw it, loved it" sorta blog reports, chez Ryan Capps[...] Amber and I saw Coast of Utopia at the Lincoln Center with Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup, both of whom were awesome. Billy Crudup wandered out of the theatre and bumped into us on the street, so we got to meet him and chat with him for a bit. [...]and Dave: [...] Pidge and I had a weekend in NY (four shows: Grey Gardens [good, not great]; Heartbreak House [brilliant]; The Drowsy Ch
Mish mash 2006-10-25 08:13:00 At Theater Thoughts NY:Well I've been looking forward to The Coast of Utopia since I started to hear rumblings of its coming to Lincoln Center during this time last year. The show opened in London in 2002 and I know a whole host of people who must be so excited it's finally here. (Probably the same people who can't wait until 2008 for Billy Elliott) I tell you, after seeing Voyage, part 1 of the three-part series, I was not disappointed! Tom Stoppard has embarked upon a momentous story - and it comes through so very well on stage. The buzz about the show is about how big of an undertaking it is. This triology will be performed at Lincoln Center over the next six months and will feature 44 actors, playing 70 roles, and covering three decades of Russian life, history, art, culture, and ideals. The cast includes such great names as Billy Crudup (Pillowman, anyone?), Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle (A&E's Pride and Prejudice), Josh Hamilton, David Harbour (Who's Afraid of VA Woolf?), Ja
Blog Report 2006-10-29 06:40:00 He Who Laughs has written about seeing Voyage, and about some frustrations in the audience too!
Last night I saw the first play, Voyage, in Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center. As per usual at Lincoln Center, I sat in a sea (a sea) of the pale and aged. They even make a special announcement about turning off hearing aids at the beginning. And did they? Of course not. And you know why? Because they're old, and they've lived so long that they no longer need to honor society with good behavior. They've paid their dues. And, because they're ancient, we shouldn't dare confront them. They're our elders.
Well, last night, my elders pissed the hell out of me. I shushed the woman next to me about forty times. She kept turning to her husband and saying, at normal talking volume, "I hope the second half's better," and "What movie was he in?" And then she got out some candies and it took about five years to unwrap it, sending that horribly loud crinkling sound thro
"A bloody coup d'etat by the second rank" 2006-10-28 04:51:00 Brendan Lemon of the LCT blog interviews David Manis, the actor playing patriarch Alexander Bakunin in Voyage while Richard Easton is recovering.
The UnderstudyPosted October 27, 2006
On Wednesday, October 18, during the second preview of Voyage, Richard Easton, who plays the Russian landowner Alexander Bakunin, collapsed as he exited the stage during the evening performance. He was determined to be suffering from arrhythmia, and this past week underwent a procedure to install a pacemaker. He is expected back in the show in the next two weeks, and the opening date of Voyage has been moved from November 5 to November 27 to accommodate his return. Meanwhile, Easton is recuperating speedily at home, with an excellent prognosis.
One sign of the upbeat nature of his mood: Easton says he relishes the irony of the line he uttered in the play before collapsing. Easton's character is speaking to his son (played by Ethan Hawke), who has been importuning him for money to go to Berlin, and East Read more:bloody
The cosmic cat 2006-10-27 16:51:00 The LCT's latest blog post explains the ominous smoking ginger cat that appears in Voyage:Before seeing Voyage, here's what I knew about ginger cats: One of them appeared with Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's. And Winston Churchill owned several of them throughout his lifetime, taking a feline named Jock to wartime cabinet meetings and even mentioning Jock in his will.A further fun fact: in Victorian pantomime entertainments for the stage (which took place roughly around the same time as some of the events in The Coast of Utopia,) the Puss 'n Boots figure was sometimes a Ginger Cat. Stoppard chose this figure, in part, to reflect the Cat's popularity at the time.I have dredged up this trivia because a handful of people have sent us e-mails asking for elucidation on the meaning of the Ginger Cat that appears toward the end of Voyage. The Cat makes an appearance at a fancy-dress party, where the actors appear in various colorful guises. (Turgenev, for instanc Read more:cosmic
First fan report 2006-10-26 13:33:00 Merci BS.O.K. so here is the story. I went to the play Coast of Utopia lastSaturday night. It was a beautiful night and I was really excited to finally see the play I've been anticipating. I've never been to the Beaumont theater before but I know that Lincoln Center is an amazing place. When I got there I felt a little out of place being alone and young. The average audience member was in their 40s or 50s. I was sitting completely by myself as the seats in all the other rows started to fill up. I wanted to try and chat up some other people and see why they were there; how they heard about the show etc. But that went right out the window. The theater itself is very very small which is great. There isn't a bad seat in the place and you feel more like a part of the action on stage.Sooo now the play... I had read Voyage before seeing the show (I even had my copy with me because I read it on the train down there!) I thought I was going to have a really hard time following the play. Not Read more:First
, report
The Revolutionist 2006-10-25 17:26:00 This is beaut. Keith Gessen, from the New Yorker, scribes a biographical piece on our man Herzen. There's mention of the Coast of Utopia trilogy as well.
The Russian radical writer and philosopher Alexander Herzen loved Rome for its warmth and spontaneity, but he was a little chagrined to find himself there when the revolution of 1848 erupted in Paris, seven hundred miles away. Luckily, the Romans were equal to the event. As Herzen watched, they gathered at the embassy of the oppressive Austrians, pulled down the enormous imperial coat of arms, stomped on it, then hitched it to a donkey and dragged it through the streets. "An amazing time," Herzen wrote to his Russian friends. "My hand shakes when I pick up a paper, every day there is something unexpected, some peal of thunder" He raced to Paris, where the provisional government was handing out grants, like some gonzo arts foundation, to anyone willing to spread the revolution abroad. Herzen's old friend the anarchist Mik
Voyage roundup 2006-10-30 11:01:00 First, read Martha Plimpton's update on being up to her eyeballs in Russia and enjoying it. Don't ingest liquids while reading.Meanwhile, Voyage
isn't to everyone's taste. Primo, Gerry Devito reckons there's too much talk.Tom Stoppard's THE COAST OF UTOPIA Part 1 VOYAGEThis play is just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and more Stoppard talk! Speeches ramble on and on and on. It is as if Stoppard took notes on the period and then put all his notes into his characters' monologues. It just goes on and on and on, and I just lose track of the idea and what is trying to be said. This three-hour Part 1 was set in Russia in 1835 and goes forward in time. Student comes home on university holiday to his family and brings some fellow students with him. They meet his four sisters; it reminds one of Chekov's THE THREE SISTERS. Stoppard does Chekov one better by having FOUR! Better not let him read this or he may write a play about The Four Sisters. The Russians are sad that they never had a
Another chance to win Pride and Prejudice 2006-10-30 21:19:00 At long last an IMDB page is up for Road to the Sky. No info yet except a 2007 release date for the UK, and Sree Bhadra Pictures is listed as a production company alongside Echo Lake and Adirondack.
AustenBlog has a competition to win copies of the Pride
and Prejudice
anniversary edition - the closing date is November 2nd, so make haste. They've got a review of the set as well, suggesting a commentary by the leads in the next edition (amen!).
PS. Mags the Editrix of AustenBlog has a book coming out,
The Jane Austen Handbook: A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World
. Read more:chance
More Voyage Reporting 2006-11-01 07:38:00 From StagestruckNYC, EdieH reports the Voyage
experience.
"Unless you majored in 19th century Russian history, make sure you arrive about 15 minutes before the curtain rises at The Coast of Utopia—Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard's trilogy. Fortunately, the historical background and synopsis of the play provided in the program are adequate preparation... The play is set in the 1840's, the first act in Premukhino at the expansive estate of the Bakunin family, members of the noble class; and the second act in Moscow, recounting the same events from a different perspective. Voyage portrays events in the lives of the Bakunin's four daughters and one son during the the rise of rebellion against serfdom and censorship under Tsar Nicholas I. The uprising, led by university student philosophers, known as Decembrists, sets up part two of the trilogy, Shipwreck.The cast is serviceably led by several Stoppard alumni, including Ethan Hawke, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Ehle, and David Mani Read more:Reporting
The soul of wit 2006-11-03 03:27:00 Voyage reports from Greg, Kay, davei2000 and Krebsman. dramedy expects an extension of the run. Also, here are the dramaturg's notes (and part of an essay on Herzen by Brendan Lemon) from the LCT site.
Utopia, Meg March, fanfic and more 2006-11-04 05:07:00 Parallels between the Russian intelligentsia and Livejournal? Tis so.I feel like I just started some important project last night but really I just saw a play. Tom Stoppard's "The Coat of Utopia
" is a trilogy, and I just saw the first part "Voyage." It's about a circle of Russian intellectuals in the nineteenth centur: Michael Bakunin, Nicholas Stankevich, Vissarion Belinsky, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Herzen and Nicholas Ogarev. In last night's show they were all young and stupid--especially Michael Bakunin. Ethan Hawke did a great job playing somebody who was charismastic and idealistic and thinks the universe revolves around him. Billy Crudup was also great as Belinsky.On the way out I pushed through what I swear I thought was a group of college students standing around near the entrance and then realized it was the cast I just saw. Billy Crudup is a tiny, tiny man.There were times when the play actually reminded me of lj, I guess because it's one modern place where people sometim Read more:March
Everyone has TB 2006-11-05 05:04:00 Five- and four-star verdicts from the NY Times' reader reviews.Equal to, if not better than, London, November 2, 2006Reviewer: sirodenajSaw the complete Utopia marathon in London, and this is at least its equal. A wonderfully thought-out and gorgeously designed production. Bob Crowley's sets and Catherine Zuber's costumes continue to astound (William Dudley's London designs were also extraordinary). The direction and acting really cannot be bettered. It would be unfair to single anyone out, although Billy Crudup as the doomed, tubercular (a lot of these characters are, unsurprisingly, tubercular) Vissarion Belinsky gets a great set piece and does it full justice. Can't wait for Parts 2 and 3. But: Do some homework before going. Some people behind me (a) had never heard of Turgenev and (b) of course had no idea how to pronounce his name. Wonder what they made of most of it?A Stoppard Classic, November 2, 2006Reviewer: mogliettina_1I admit that this somewhat "talky" production of "T
More love for Voyage 2006-11-06 02:04:00 Dork Out Dude has seen Voyage
and reports:
Last night, after more than a week's worth of hopeful trips to the TKTS booth in Times Square, Keith decided it was time to see Voyage - the first of a collection of three plays by Tom Stoppard called The Coast of Utopia - at any cost. I feel like the luckiest person to have been able to go with him. It was magnificent. Each character, as Keith said while we walked out of the theater, was sympathetic. "You just wanted to go up on stage and talk to them. You wanted to know them. Or, at least, I did"
Lincoln Center Theater was another experience in itself - a semicircular pitch, I think the shape is called. The sets and the were managed perfectly and dynamically, and worked to make each scene lively and interesting. There really was not a single moment when I felt it was insincere, forced, or slow. What a triumph for such a philosophical, cerebral play to be performed with an overall sense of excitement and true thrill.
I'm going to be
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