Brilliant! Dark and Hilarious!

So this happened- LOL- we went to see the new Martin McDonagh play at National Theater Live - and found it just as noted in my mini review above- brilliant- dark and hilarious! (all photos from the NTLive website)

from the NT Live website:

Following a sell-out run at London’s Royal Court Theatre, Olivier and Academy Award® winner Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman, The Cripple of Inishmaan, In Bruges) returns to the West End with Matthew Dunster’s award-winning production of his deeply funny new play Hangmen, broadcast live to cinemas by National Theatre Live.

In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging? 

Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd and the peculiar Mooney lurk with very different motives for their visit.

in the opening scene - pictured above - the hangman and his assistant prepare to hang a convicted man.  the man protests his innocence but also protests that he didn't want this hangman as he was only the second best hangman and he wanted the number one to hang him - but he continues to protest his innocence... the hanging takes place and the next scene opens in a pub two years later -

in the pub the patrons are discussing the fact that as of this date hanging has been outlawed in the UK and the pub keeper Harry, (the second best hangman) is now out of a job - a reporter comes by to get a story from Harry about what he thinks about the whole topic.

Pub patrons like the greek chorus- chime in at various parts of the action-

a stranger shows up- on the second anniversary of the hanging from the first scene- he is "menacing" LOL- and wants everyone to know he is "menacing" while lurking about the pub trying to rent a room....

the menacing stranger - called Moonie- flirts with Harry's daughter who is 15 and "moody" LOL

Harry's wife - a hot number - first likes the stranger Moonie but when he becomes abusive she sees his real character. When her daughter disappears everyone fears the worst- because on the first anniversary of the hanging from the first scene there was another murder of a young woman just like the one the hanged man was supposed to have committed....

the police inspector (below) spends more time drinking in Harry's pub than on the job

things get darker and funnier and darker and funnier- the number ONE hangman comes round to berate Harry for belittling the number ONE guy's record in the newspaper interview - and happens upon a scene in the pub- everyone is worried about the well being of the daughter Shirley who has disappeared and the "menacing" Moonie implies her life might be imperiled...

LOL- well I won't spoil the plot twists and turns here but let me say this - if you remember the ending of the Martin McDonagh play-  The Lieutenant of Inishmore then you can be assured it won't be predictable.  We have also loved The Cripple of Inishmore, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and A Skull in Connemara.  So of course we wanted to see this latest when we saw it was playing through NT Live!

here's a link to the trailer of this terrifically funny play-
http://bit.ly/1RdiQ3h

if you find NT Live in your area - we can highly recommend going- we also saw Skylight and The Beaux Stratagem there and LOVED them all so far! Up this week- another close, another move and finally a new home! Meanwhile today was our lucky day- we scored tickets to the Festival in Coachella this fall with all the rock and roll heroes of our youth - so in the fall we will be among the seniors at the desert trip production of the Stones, McCartney, Dylan, Neil Young, the Who and Roger Waters! Three days of music in the desert!

always need to have something to look forward to! stay tuned- we are off to NYC next week and meanwhile have the big move scheduled - so we will report back as usual!

a Saturday morning lecture

So on Saturday morning I got up to go to a lecture on the career of two architects from the turn of the century to the last days before the 29 crash, Carrère and Hastings.

here is the blurb from the museum where I went for the lecture-

The lecturer was a wonderfully knowledgeable and witty woman who had vast amounts of information about these two gentlemen- giants of their era. Most famous for the NY Public Library (where were they when the monstrosity that is the Chicago Public Library was being designed?) the two collaborated on many other famous works including the Ponce de Leon hotel in St Augustine and the Flagler Home in Palm Beach and many "country" homes of the uber-rich of the era in Newport and Long Island and other east coast venues. And one of our favorite museums - the Frick was their design...

here is the wikipedia entry for them

Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère (November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 23, 1929), was one of the outstanding Beaux-Arts architecture firms in the United States. It was located in New York City. The partnership operated from 1885 until 1911, when Carrère was killed in an automobile accident. Thomas Hastings continued on his own, using the same firm name, until his death in 1929.

Both men studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and worked at the firm of McKim, Mead, and White before they established their firm in the same building. The partnership's first success was the Ponce de León Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, which they designed for Henry Flagler. They went on to establish a successful practice during the 1880s and early 1890s, and rose to national prominence by winning the competition for the New York Public Library in 1897. The firm designed commercial buildings, elaborate residences, and prominent public buildings in New York, Washington and as far afield as Toronto, London, Paris, Rome, and Havana.

now the facility of Flagler College - we toured the Ponce de Leon hotel a couple of years back- here is my photo group-

here are some of the works she presented to us this morning - 

• Ponce de León Hotel, St. Augustine, Florida, 1885–87, now part of Flagler College
• Cairnwood Mansion, Bryn Athyn College, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1895
• New York Public Library, New York City, 1897–1911
• Burrwood, one of the Gold Coast Mansions on Long Island, New York, 1898–1899 (razed)
• Vernon Court, Newport, Rhode Island, 1898
• Blairsden, C. Ledyard Blair house, Peapack, New Jersey, 1898–1903
• Bellefontaine, Giraud Foster house, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1899
• Henry Flagler's Whitehall, Palm Beach, Florida, 1900–1901
• Knole, Herman B. Duryea house, Westbury, New York, 1903
• Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1903–1908
• Arden, E.H. Harriman house, Harriman, New York, 1905–09
• Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1908
• Bagatelle, Thomas Hastings house, Old Westbury, New York, 1908
• Nemours, Alfred I. DuPont house, Wilmington, Delaware, 1909–10
• Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City, 1910
• W. B. Thompson Mansion, Yonkers, New York, 1912
• Henry Clay Frick House, now housing the Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York City, 1913–1914
• Grand Army Plaza (Manhattan), NYC, 1916
• Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, Washington, D.C., 1920

A very interesting lecture that literally packed the Historic Asolo theater- really worth getting up for!