Voyage or Shipwreck?

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

I'm a HUGE Tom Stoppard fan and would love to catch part of the Coast of Utopia when I'm in NYC this winter.

The thing is, both shows will be playing when I'm there, Voyage and Shipwreck.

Has anyone read/seen the two plays? Which is better?

Thanks

[queendork]

[MargoChanning]

From what I've heard from friends who saw the trilogy in London, Part I: Voyage is the strongest of the three plays by far and is most able to stand on its own as an individual play if you don't know or see the other two.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Thank you very much Dork and Channing!

I'll buy my tickets next week!

[mabel]

Yeah, the reviews that I'd read of the three gave Voyage the best reviews. I'd say go for that if you can.

*keeping fingers crossed that I'll be able to get quasi-decent seats for all three once the StudenTix go on sale*

[apdarcey]

voyage if you're only seeing one. but you know there's a third, right? salvage. o'brien seems to like that one the best. personally, i would see all 3 if you could.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Yeah, the third won't be playing when I'm there...

[LaurenB]

Queendork - I know nothing about Jack O'Brien, but I kind of like his interpretation. I saw the 3 plays and I would tend to agree with his assessment. The critics in England did seem to prefer the first play. I preferred the second, but I am probably biased. The role that Jack is playing (Herzen) is only introduced at the very end of the first play, and then he is featured predominantly in the next 2 plays. At least this is the way it was presented in England, and I don't know how much Stoppard has changed it. I found Stephen Dillane to be totally riveting in the role of Herzen, so I found the second play to be the most memorable. He was wonderful in the third play too, but at the end of a trilogy day, you're just trying to stay awake.

The first play sort of is Bukanin's (spelling?), now played by Ethan Hawke, so it will probably be very popular.

I found the third play to be the weakest. I read that they are shortening the total length of the 3 plays. I did not have a problem with the overall length (9.5 hours or so), but I thought that the third play spent too much time on a couple of characters that I didn't care about. I would have liked to have seen Stoppard jettison some of the characters in the third play, and explore some of the others. But, he never asked my opinion, LOL.

I do not understand why this new production is offering so few trilogy days. :-/

[queendork]

[jennite]

How hard will it be to get public tickets, do you think? Will it sell out immediately (within hours)? Heard on ATC that Telecharge was swamped as soon as they opened member sales on Monday.

[mabel]

I think that's generally the case with the member sales for LTC shows, isn't it? I don't know, I just have the StudenTix membership and we still have to buy tix with the general public. Also, I think I read on talkinbroadway that for at least a little while, it was open (accidentally) to non-members. I don't know if they just didn't ask for the membership info/password, etc, so anyone could buy tix that first day. I'd imagine that would bog the system down too. Not sure if they'll try to track those people down and not send out their tix (as someone on talkinbroadway suggested) or if those people just lucked out by jumping the queue??