This was a show of many firsts for me. The first show I nearly left at the interval. The first show I almost cried with laughter at. The first show that I thought was truly dreadful.
It was a show of missed opportunities. In its full 2h 35m, it sped through dramatic moments, and lingered on dull conversations which added nothing to the plot.
The lighting missed so many opportunities. Either the whole stage was lit, or entirely dark. There was no development of mood or atmosphere, no tension, no drama. Though they attempted to create this mood by flickering some strobe lights at the audience at random moments, which frankly just got annoying.
The sound was irritating - the near constant soundscape just added a dodgy, melodramatic quality to the whole piece, and the moment when he breaks someones bones was criminally hilarious - the crunching, twisting sound effect meant that any attempt at subtly was entirely lost...
And unfortunately, the acting didn't stand up to much. I missed a lot of the action after 'Come to me! Come to me! My arms have been longing for your blood' as it took me 10 minutes to compose myself... Another actor seemed unable to decide whether to play every role for laughs, or take it all incredibly seriously. Yes, they were as good as they sound.
I mean really, for the amount of time & money that were spent on this, it should have been a lot better. Nobody seemed to have any vision, or any sense of timing. The climax of the play was as exciting as a wet paper towel, and then it was over!
The applause for the audience was distinctly lackluster...
Overall, disappointingly pants.