We went to see Tom Stoppard’s new play Rock ‘N’ Roll. It is quite a long play all about Prague and underground Rock and Roll bands like Pink Floyd. The text is really dense and like Stoppard’s many other plays, demands that the audience works pretty hard to follow what is going on.
The acting was very good, with Rufus Sewell outstanding. I was less convinced by Trevor Nunn’s direction which seemed a tad uninspiring, which was a pity. One important scene in the second half almost was notably unconvincing.
The set was a clever revolve, aided by some nifty lighting. The video projections became rather irritating by the end: soundtracks with words in various fonts was very unadventurous. I felt like placing a bet on which corner the year date would come flying in from. They could have been used to help clarify what was going on in Prague for those of us a little rusty on Czech history. Or perhaps that would have been spoonfeeding us too much.
It must have been good though, bceause we were all talking about it for hours afterwards.
I would love to see this taken on by a regional theatre.