A Mad Dash for a Mad King

What it actually left me with was quite a mad dash where every day was a travel day. It's a good thing I like trains, because, minus sleep, I think might've been on trains more than I was off them this trip.

The Mad Dash

I left for the Eurostar on Friday as soon as I could after work. I think all in all from the moment I arrived home I had about 30-40 minutes to get changed, pack (yes, I should've done it earlier), poop, and head out to the train station.

I think I was delayed at every point of the journey, the first train had a technical issue requiring it to drive as slow as it could all the while honking, much to the chagrin of the people waiting at the crossing. At the Eurostar gates apparently these days to need to file an ETA beforehand, but, this is why we build in buffer time in our trips. By the time I arrived at the first night's sleep in London around 23:00 local time, I was sweaty, not a novel experience these last few weeks, and asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

All of the days were travel days, and the day of the play was no exception, the morning and early afternoon mostly consisting of walking to Marleybone station and taking two trains to get to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Between check-in and heading out to the play I had just about enough time for a shower. The return day was just trains, trains, trains, and trainmobiles. Not much to remark on, but I think I was on a train more than I was off it that day, not counting sleeping.

I wasn't sure if this trip would ever end up feeling like a vacation, but there were moments, when I had a quick moment to sit down in Regency Park with a soft-serve ice-cream, walking the old streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, strolling the docks before check-in. All in all it had everything I would've done, but just heavily condensed.

The Mad King

The Mad Dash was completely worth it. I absolutely adored this play. It was impressive, full of spectacle, with great set design, large puppets of dragons and knights, action, but also great characters, revelations for long-time fans, while still being a contained, strong story for newcomers or anyone who doesn't quite remember what happened in the shows and books. And while you could call it a pop-culture play, I think it is very strong and it does things with the form of theatre that should be commended.

The first half, which ends on a killer sting, focuses on several characters during the tournament at Harrenhall, the Prince, who may or may not be promised, his White Guard, the Starks, Howland Reed, Robert Baratheon, the Martells, the awful, more cruel than truly mad, King.

This is hardly news to anyone, but George R.R. Martin is a great character writer. I could give you a plot description or tell you what revelations this play had for the greater story, and there are some very interesting ones, but it would not capture what makes this a story worth telling without the characters. Everyone is so much richer and more complex than the roles they play in these events.

The Prince is not the idealized perfect ruler than never was, he has his own Targaryen weaknesses, but at the same time he kind of is as well. You fall in love with Lyanna and you can see why she'd unleash a war, even apart from any prophesies, she is delightful, she is witty, smart, brave, but later on you equally wonder how she could be so stupid. Robert is loud, brash, and boisterous, but there is a sensitivity and sadness in him too. He certainly has a love for Lyanna that is more than skin deep, but it might not be entirely about her. Even the eponymous Mad King, while just as mad, vindictive, and cruel as everyone remembers him has more going for him than that, even giving him a moment to be more sane that his 'perfect Prince' of a son.

The second half is less one moment full of secrets like the Harrenhall part, it follows the events of the rebellion we know more of already. It is more a series of moments, telling a coherent story mind you, many of which we are already familiar. I was slightly less enthralled by the second half, it still has all the spectacle and acting that made the first half, there is really nothing about the production or performance that was less here, I just found myself less excited retreading more familiar ground.

That being said, I do think you have to do this part, so many things are setup in the first half, so many stories started, so many characters introduced, and so many you care for, that it would feel unsatisfying if you didn't see that through to its conclusion.

There are still some revelations of course, mainly about what exactly Lyanna and Rhaeger were like together, why they did what they did, what happened at the Tower of Joy, but after so much time to think about these events, to theorize, it's nice to see, but it is about what I expected.

The Form of (the) Theatre

We get the term the fourth wall from theatre, an imaginary wall between the audience and the stage, which gives the impression of the stage as a simple four walled room, the characters in a box and us looking inside it. But there's so many more ways a stage can be setup, so many angles, so many views, some that might only work in theatre. Besides just a box we peer into theatre has also always tried to capture spectacle live in front of our eyes, from old Roman Colosseums being flooded to stage naval battles, somehow, to productions like these today.

The shape of this theatre was used in marvelous ways, it's a great setup with a cross shape in the middle, and two platforms higher up. It puts the audience around and inside the stage, and allows for so many opportunities. The center can function like a focal center point like in many productions, the lines of the cross can offer side areas to divide people, or to provide side conversations, armies can rush across the stage, etcetera.

It did a thing with slow-motion that I find hard to explain. Combined with a sound cue and lighting, it would have the characters go into slow-motion, which might sound a bit silly, but (1) it wasn't and (2) it developed this into a little language of its own where it would use this as a way to sort of 'zoom in' on characters or moments in a battle by using this technique.

I don't have enough theatre experience to make this call, but I think, perhaps partially in a response to movies and tv, theatre has a language the screen cannot replicate, the ability to have your eyes move across the stage, focus on what it wants to focus, and the way the play directs you to by having characters to the side, and occasionally in between the audience, creates an experience quite unique to the theatre.