Don
Juan
Reviews:
Humour lifts up lover's tale - Don Juan
Theatre Review: Sheffield
By John Highfield
“With Simon Nye on board as translator it is almost inevitable that this
Crucible revival of Moliere's work will see the legendary Spanish lover billed
as a 17th century man behaving badly. But Tom Hollander's eponymous anti-hero
is more boy than man, a swaggering schoolyard bully who might thumb his nose
at authority but becomes a sulky, silent infant when faced by the wrath of his
father.
It is a marvellously theatrical creation, all swagger and selfishness - a
masterpiece of comic timing that encourages us to laugh even when
Moliere is making one of his heavy points on the nature of faith, or the lack
of it, and morality…”
Gustav
Mahler in Ronald Harwood's OTT biodrama GERAINT LEWIS
Independent on Sunday (London)
October 7, 2001, Sunday
By Kate Bassett
“…Last but far from least, Tom Hollander is wickedly funny as
the serial womaniser in Moliere's Don Juan at the Sheffield Crucible. Michael
Grandage's production is played out in an attractively dilapidated, Mediterranean
town square and Hollander is having the time of his life, relishing Simon Nye's
zesty new translation and skipping after ladies like a naughty boy. With designer
crocodile shoes and golden curls, he's also a nasty toff and fallen angel with
no faith at all….”
Don Juan
Sunday Times (London)
October 7, 2001, Sunday
By John Peter
“…Tom Hollander plays [Don Juan] as a bright-eyed, sensual, baby-faced
troublemaker; a pirate, a gambler, a natural actor. Women would find him cuddly
but dangerous -a lethal combination. The temptation for an actor is to smirk,
to watch himself being a hit. No such thing here. The don is unselfconscious,
impulsive and completely natural, seducing and moving on is what he does: it
is his nature. In every encounter, he behaves with complete conviction. Hollander's
don is not play-acting. He is doing something much more complex and dangerous:
he is practising totally sincere hypocrisy. This is a coruscatingly evil performance,
but it underplays the don's contemptuous amorality. God? What God? Moliere's
don is haunted by this terrible denial, though he does not know it; Hollander's
don does not make much of it until the very end…"
The seducer who wouldn't
grow up: Don Juan Crucible,
Sheffield 4/5
By Lyn Gardner
Guardian Leader Pages, Pg. 20
“…Tom Hollander's Don Juan is a monstrous cherub, a Peter Pan of
the rumpled bed sheets who thinks life is one long bedroom romp. He is a love
'em and leave 'em champion, a serial bigamist who thrills to the chase but can't
settle to the day-to-day reality of married life. In our own day, the child-support
agency would have a file on him as thick as a telephone directory….Hollander
peeps bashfully from under his eyelashes, like a choirboy who has been caught
looking at pornography in the pews...”
"Simon Nye’s translation crackles with wit, energy and
imagination. It’s thoroughly contemporary, very funny and totally
compelling... 80 minutes of sheer enjoyment"
Internet Theatreworld
Full
Review
A delightful new translation... ..brisk, assured production"
– Dominic Cavendish - Daily Telegraph
"Simon Nye’s aggressively but elegantly
modern version is a treat"
– John Peter - Sunday Times
A play by Moliere, adapted by Simon Nye
Michael Grandage, Director
Crucible, Sheffield
Theatre
Sept. 26 – Oct. 20, 2001
Cast
Don Juan: Tom Hollander
Sganarelle (Don's Servant):
Anthony O'Donnell
Elvira: Neve McIntosh
Guzman/Ragotin: Francis Maguire
Don Carlos: Gideon Turner
Don Alonso/Commander: Tom Mullion
Don Luis/Beggar: Robert East
Charlotte: Lucy
Briers
Martha: Kerry Godliman
Peter: Grant Gillespie
Mr. Sunday: Timothy Kightley
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