When does a play begin? When is art ever completed? What are beginnings and endings? Interesting questions, though I’m not sure Lucy Roslyn has the answers. I’m sure, of course, that she wouldn’t pretend to have answered life’s big questions either. That would be pretentious. But we can at least ask of a play if it knows itself. It’s not clear what Orlando is supposed to be about. Orlando is, of course, Virginia Woolf’s classic 1928 novel about a poet who changes genders and time zones, … [Read more...]
Towers at Milton Court Theatre | Review
Towers is the third of Guildhall’s current showing of their final years. Fury reinterpreted Euripides’ Medea as the story of a working class, single mother in Peckham, a microcosmic examination of social housing and motherhood. Towers is the polar opposite, grandiose in every sense of the word, a macro look at the future of London, and the people who live in it. Ameera Conrad’s script is extremely ambitious, a rip roar whistle-stop tour through every kind of person living in London, their … [Read more...]
The Lady from the Sea at the Print Room at the Coronet
I should say before I start, that I don’t really like Ibsen. Despite being the second most performed writer after Shakespeare, I find his proto-feminist scripts dated, and his high-realism to be at odds with his heavily idea-oriented scripts. Though Ibsen ranks among Euripides, Bernard Shaw and Strindberg as writers apt for reinterpretation and adaptation, I find his ‘strong female characters’ are often quite archaic and simplistic representations. That all said, and perhaps because of it, the … [Read more...]
Guildhall presents Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s Fury
Fury is a modern reworking of Euripides’ classical Medea, a play which has become increasingly popular for contemporary, often feminist interpretations. Rachel Cusk’s adaptation played at The Almeida last September; Pecho Mama’s Medea Electronica opens next week at The Pleasance - Islington; International Theatre Amsterdam’s Medea runs 6-9 March at The Barbican. It seems a fitting play for our times, too, examining single mothers, irresponsible absent fathers and providing an exhausting, tour de … [Read more...]
Salaam presented by Sara Aniqah Malik | Review
Sara Malik’s Salaam is about lots and lots of things. Islamaphobia, faith, family, food and much more. Too much more? Rema (Raagni Sharma) and her mother, Mariam (Yasmin Wilde), are passing Ramadan, when a pig’s head is thrown through their window, shattering their peace. In an instant, mother and daughter diverge and unite in their response to Islamophobia in their community. Rema responds with calm, offering to take the head out, while Mariam is shocked, but ultimately more accepting of the … [Read more...]
Queens of Sheba presented by Nouveau Riché at The Vault Festival
In 2015, four black women were turned away from London’s DSTRKT venue for being “too dark”. Nouveau Riche take this incident as their starting point, but Queens of Sheba is about so, so, so much more. Peppered with a capella renditions of classic blues songs through the ages, an all black, female cast take to an empty to stage to fill it with a story. From misogynoir to black men, to white men, to mothers and fathers, to the pure comedy and tragedy of everyday life, Queens of Sheba is a … [Read more...]
Opal Fruits presented by Holly Beasley-Garrigan | Vault Festival
Holly Beasley-Garrigan’s solo show rests heavily on the image of Opal Fruits, and their rebranding as Starbursts in 1998, the suggestion being that this is symbolic of so, so much more. She renames her characters after different coloured sweets, hands a bag of them out to the audience, using them as metaphors for gentrification and redevelopment and the failures of New Labour. A lot of meaning for a bag of sweets, you might say. So, everyone saw Misty last year, right? Arinzé Kene’s West … [Read more...]