Revisiting Thebes Land at Arcola Theatre because it is still exceptional

I do not often go back and see a repeat performance of a show but Thebes Land made such a good and strong impression on me the first time around that I had to see it again when it was revived for a second run. Quick booking got me 1 Full Price ticket (Ground Floor: A19 (Aisle Seats, Arcola Best Seats)) for £22, a snip. Last year it was only £19 and that was a ridiculous steal.

Usually when I see a play I have little or no idea of what to expect but with Thebes the situation was different. Not only had I seen the same production less than a year previously I also read my blog post of that to remind myself of what I thought at that time. Despite that I was still surprised at just how brilliant Thebes Land was. I was expecting something exceptional and it was better than that.

A second watching just brought home to me just how much was going on in the play and I noticed things that I had not spotted the first time. Some examples.

One short scene about the prisoner's rosary beads was presented four times. First we saw it as it happened with the prisoner and the playwright. Then we saw an almost exact copy with the actor and the playwright. Then the playwright added a Whitney Huston CD to the scene. Then, finally, the actor built on that to produce the final version of the scene. It was fascinating to watch and also opened the question of how many other versions of this scene had been tried before these four were selected for the play.

Throughout the play the question was asked, what is the time?, and the answer was always 5pm until the final time when it was 1 minute past. It was only a little touch, but a nice one.

The tempo of the play varied more than I remembered and I particularly liked the slow scenes where the action actually stopped for long moments.

Thebes Land was stupidly rich with great ideas and I loved even more the second time because of that.

I was extremely lucky to grab a few quick words with Trevor White (the playwright in the play) afterwards. These were mostly me struggling to find the way to say how much I loved the play but there were some nuggets of content in which I was surprised to learn that this version of the play was slightly shorter than last year's, through cutting some scenes, and was pleased to learn that I was right about the greater emphasis on tempo.