Cost of Living

OK, so I am tempted to see some really great theater (and a bit of great film) before I head back home. This weekend is my last full weekend in London this year.

I picked up Time Out and got to read it at lunch today. I am so up for Katie Mitchell's Women of Troy at the National. I always have a good time at the National (well, except with that awful Therese Raquin business), and they write me really nice rejection letters.

Here's the question: do I see it this weekend, sit in the fifth row stalls, and pay £39.50? Or do I go for the £10 seats in the front row stalls -- first date still available is at the end of January.

At the cheap rate, I could buy two, half the price of a single ticket, and take a friend. But I don't know if any of my friends who would be totally turned on by 1) a Katie Mitchell production and 2) a 'radical reinterpretation of Euripides or 3) for that matter, Euripides in any form.

Did I mention I learned ancient Greek in college because I wanted to read Greek tragedy in the original? And Euripides has always been my favorite. I do prefer the Hecuba a bit to The Trojan Women but that's mainly cos it's so f'in dark. But then I'd like any play, well done, where an old lady lures a rich guy into a tent, blinds him, and then has his sons murdered. All in revenge.

And did I mention Katie Mitchell directed my favorite production ever, which was the Uncle Vanya at the Young Vic in 1998 which totally got me to get Chekhov for the first time and remains so memorable to this day. (With Stephen Dillane and Linus Roache, hard for it not to be so . . .)

UPDATE: OK so I just clicked on the trailer and watched it on the NT's website -- how very iPody of them to make film trailers for their live shows. Anyway as mentioned in the reviews, there are women in ball gowns, there is big band music, and I just got thrills and chills from the new version. A lot looser than a translation, but I'll take it. I think I just answered my question.