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Theatre

Song From Far Away, Young Vic ★★★★★

02 Sep 15 – 19 Sep 15, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Director Ivo van Hove and playwright Simon Stephens collaborate in  Song From Far Away, a stripped back exploration of grief

By Lucy Brooks on 7/9/2015

2 CW readers are interested
Young Vic, Song From Far Away: photo by Jan Versweyveld
Young Vic, Song From Far Away: photo by Jan Versweyveld
Song From Far Away, Young Vic 3 Song From Far Away, Young Vic Lucy Brooks
Song From Far Away, Young Vic review: Culture Whisper says ★★★★★
This collaboration between theatre heavyweights Ivo van Hove and Simon Stephens has the flashes of brilliance you'd expect from such talents, but as a piece of theatre it feels flat. 
Song From Far Away explores loss and love, as a young man (played with intensity by Dutch actor Eelco Smiths) grieves for his dead brother through a series of letters. 
Despite potent poetry and moments of comedy the monologue doesn't grip. It feels like something that would be more rewarding to read than to view as a performance. Our engagement with the plot felt abstract and, though the subject matter is raw, a lack of humanity in both the protagonist and his dead brother creates a curiously detached effect. The premise of the play is intimacy and that is exactly what is missing in the production.
Ivo van Hove's direction is unsurprisingly stripped back -- sparse stage, stark delivery -- and this becomes literal when Eelco Smiths pulls away the layers of his mourning and strips off all his clothes. As a metaphor for the character's vulnerability the nudity is apt, but, as this bareness lasts the duration of the play the initial effect dulls and it begins to feel like this nakedness is the most ballsy and bold thing about the show.
 
Ivo van Hove: Young Vic blockbuster
Visionary Belgian director Ivo van Hove stormed the Young Vic stage with his edgy take on A View From the Bridge starring big screen actor Mark Strong. As the first feature production that van Hove has directed in the UK, the Arthur Miller adaptation's fanfare of five star reviews and subsequent West End transfer catapulted its director from highbrow experimentalist to the hottest name in directing. 
Simon Stephens: new play
For his hotly-anticpated return to the Young Vic, Ivo van Hove directs this new play by Simon Stephens. The Olivier award-winning Curious Incident and Punk Rock playwright has written three adaptations for the theatre, but this is his first original play at the Young Vic. After opening in Brazil then Amsterdam, Song From Far Away is in London for blink-and-you'll-miss-it run, which sold out well before opening night.


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What Song From Far Away, Young Vic
Where The Young Vic, 66 The Cut, Waterloo, London, SE1 8LZ | MAP
Nearest tube Southwark (underground)
When 02 Sep 15 – 19 Sep 15, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Price £10 - £35
Website Click here to book via the Young Vic



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  • What the critics say

    THE TELEGRAPH

    "never quite delivers on its promise... All the ingredients are here, then, for a truly involving theatrical experience, but they never quite coalesce."

    Laura Barnett

    THE EVENING STANDARD

    "There’s certainly a quality of stillness to Smits’s performance, but it’s predominantly uninvolving and I was baffled as to why he needs to spend 30 minutes in the nude." 

    Fiona Mountford

    Practical

    ABOUT THE YOUNG VIC

    The Young Vic is London's theatre du jour. Fresh from a blockbuster 2014, which brought three Critics' Circle awards, two Evening Standard gongs, record-breaking (and computer-crashing) ticket sales and the sought after title of London Theatre of the Year 2015, The Young Vic's new season shimmers with stellar actors and theatre-makers.

    The theatre's reputation for combining bold boundary-breaking productions, high-profile actors and the most innovative directors and creatives resonates through the programming, which places canonical classics alongside new writing and inventive adaptations. Artistic Director David Lan describes 2015 at the Young Vic as "a mix of rarely performed plays, world premieres, new light on dark classics''.

What members say

    What impressed me was the quality of the play, Van Hove's direction, Stephen's monologue, Eelco Smiths' discrete acting - a tour de force. I was not bothered Read more

    Eleonore Dresch

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Review

Young Vic Theatre

Ivo van Hove

Simon Stephens

Day tickets

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