John Gabriel Borkman Artist Talk

[rdholmantx]

Here's my account of the artist talk for John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre:

The Abbey talk was less than an hour and no questions were allowed from the audience.  The moderator kept it strictly to questions about John Gabriel Borkman, and he evenly distributed questions to the cast.  Cast in attendance were Cathy Belton, Joan Sheehy, Lindsay

Comments

[m_mcgonagall_65]

Well, next to a pic, a nice detailed first-hand account works well. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble...

[rdholmantx]

Yes, wasn't in a mood to get into any trouble. The Abbey is very lenient with me because I'm a patron, but I'm sure they have limits.

[beffeysue]

*waves to rdholmantx* Thank you for posting about the artist talk. I can understand why the moderator might be the only one to ask questions, but I also understand why it would be nice if the members of the audience would love to ask their own. Maybe most of the cast members were just very tired and the mod thought this was the only way to keep the time under an hour.

[rdholmantx]

I think it would be nice for the audience to ask questions if they actually ever asked something new or different. But when 20 women lined up at BAM to ask questions about what they should purse in their acting careers... that got a bit old. And the questions asked at Hudson, even from the moderator, were absolutely horrible.

From what I understand, the cast was very limited in their time, and they decided to not even try to have an audience question time because it would just be too hard to keep it within a time limit that was reasonable.

[ext_292297]

Thank you so much for your first hand account. I was surprised not as many people showed up as it's been commented on The Abbey's site how wonderful most have found it to be. I'm sure all the cast was tired. Was anything said about coming to NY? Fiona Shaw always seems cheerful.

We love Alan anyway (sleepy or otherwise) and happy to hear he didn't have to face Snape or "villain" questions from the audience!

[rdholmantx]

Everything in Dublin seemed on a smaller scale than anything I'm used to (London or New York), which was quite refreshing, really.

New York was mentioned, Ms. Shaw said she was quite nervous about how the play would translate, because the adaptation is VERY Irish and American audiences are so different than Irish or English audiences.

[ispellit]

Thanks for the report. Well written, as always. John's right about those people with their ringing mobiles!

[rdholmantx]

Indeed. Although my perverse sense of humour makes me want to set mine off on purpose... maybe when John walks on stage. Of course, it plays Paparazzi by Lady Gaga...