I love theatre. Dream for it. Work for it. Write for it.
Over the last few years I have been writing reviews for different productions and I would like to start sharing those reviews with you via my Blog. Press is so important for the industry and I would like to encourage you to upload your own reviews too. Lets spread the love...
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Wanted
Devised by the company
dANTE oR dIE
Chelsea Theatre
Review by Lennie Varvarides (2005)
Wanted is a new devised piece of theatre presented by dANTE oR dIE, an international collective of theatre practitioners dedicated to creating original, innovative new work. Wanted is a wonderfully surreal portrayal of an ultimately universal question about human desires: what do we need to be happy? What do we want to keep us happy? What are we scared of? This is the provocation that Wanted pushes the audience to reflect upon while examining their own vulnerabilities.
These questions are illustrated through the three strong cast; Clare Parke-Davies, who plays a young child-like woman living in apparent happiness, is obsessed with making sandwiches and forcing her brother, played by Stu Barter, to eat them, until a stranger (Terry O'Donovan ) arrives and seems to offer her a different sort of distraction while confronting her suppressed fears and desire for a different kind of happiness. …love.
dANTE oR dIE are extremely sensitive to place and space in their devising process. Both in terms of traditional theatre space and more adventurous site-specific locations such as Iona, for example, an isolated Scottish island where the company lived and devised Wanted for ten days. The appropriately timeless setting on an equally obscure island near the sea becomes a metaphorical link between the characters' emotional landscape and the visual one on stage. The harmony between the two worlds were married together through the simple yet powerful scenography, designed by Nicola Remon and the equally complementary lighting design, by Mark Jones.
Wanted, directed by Daphna Attias, a recent graduate from The Central School of Speech and Drama, has also been performed at BAC Scratch Nights last October and will be going on tour to the Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, this coming April. The best way to describe dANTE oR dIES productions is to say that as a collective they chase a visual theatre that embodies genuine creativity. They present a narrative with enough ambiguity to prevent predictability and they design theatre that is completely visceral.
Attias takes chance and plays with it, making Wanted both a physical and absurd play highlighting that we are all a little scared of growing up. The only constructive pieces of criticism I have is that it is far too short and, while the ideas are powerful, the characters need more time on stage for the audience to really get invested in them and follow their journey through the play. However it is still the best piece of theatre I have seen for a long time and strongly recommend the show, as well as dANTE oR dies as a progressive theatre collective.
This production will be at the Burton Taylor Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, Gloucester Street, Oxford, OX1 2BN from Tues 19th to Sat 23rd April.
Box Office: 01865 305350
Their next production will be "Never smile at a crocodile": Docklands 26-27 April. Box office 020 7515 7799
The Lesson
By Eugene Ionesco
Not Applicable
White Bear Theatre Club
Review by Lennie Varvarides (2007)
The Lesson may be one of Eugene Ionesco less well-known plays, but the grandfather of the absurd is still as resonant today as he was back in the 60s. A three strong cast of archetypal characters - The Professor, The Pupil and The Maid - all play on the merry-go-round of power and status, but it is the Pupils who all end in the ground, while the Maid cleans up the Professor's mess.
The Professor, played with an overt theatrical presence by Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, slowly deflates his innocent, eager and enthusiastic Pupil, played with both charisma and vulnerability by Ana Valenica. This 'deflation' is represented symbolically through Ana Valenica's performance, and took the audience on an effortless journey through their own childhood and back again into the white and clinical theatre space.
The Maid, play by Carly Davies, seemed to have a strange alliance with the space and the set. Both seemed to know something the audience did not.
The lighting board had unfortunately refused to work and the actors were naked to a florescent light. However, this seemed to work to their advantage and the set, designed by Natasha Stamatari complemented the light and dark shadows created naturally.
The direction is minimal and swift but within tiny gestures, great statements are made which can only be an example of the Arnaud Mugglestone's insight into the play. What out for this young director!
Eugene Ionesco's message about power and politics has not dated. Consider if you will the education system and question whether or not it is an aggressive and overpowering institution, especially in Key Stage 2 and 3? (Speaking from a supply teacher's perspective I have witnessed for myself how the lively and enthusiastic children are sedated into silence. Energy is seen as interruption and interruption is disruptive and disruptive children are given three strikes before they out.)
Last week I binged on theatre, pitting East against West with plays in Shoreditch and Hammersmith. I saw Sub Transmission at The Courtyard Theatre in Shoreditch and then The Lady of Burma at the Riverside Studios in West London.
Sub Transmission
Sit back, I feel a song coming on...Sub Transmission, the first professional play by new writer Simon Humphreys, has much to talk about, perhaps too much. The audience may at first feel over whelmed by the outburst of song, but before long we are tapping our feet and swaying our heads, thanks to composers Paul Atkins and Ian Purdy's catchy beats.
Loosely based on the themes of ‘Mary Poppins’, Sub Transmission invites you into a suburban home. Here we see ‘Mother’ played by Philipa Tozer and ‘Father’ played with comic timing by Marc Forde, slowly destroying each other. Their adolescent son Jordon, played naturally by Paul McRae, is not able to hold his family together and resorts to enlisting the help of a Nanny, I mean a Tranny, played with charisma by Neil Summerville. With his suitcase full of tricks he sidesteps the teaspoon full of sugar, for a wine glass full of alcohol, I mean magic, to help them to ‘open up’ and address their problems.
As transparent and simplistic as the plot is, Sub Transmission is easy entertainment, mixing light hearted comedy with the recognisable domestic interior of modern day life. Under the giggles and through the voyeurism of adolescent homosexuality we are witnessing a raw production, something still in development that makes no apologies for its exploration and proudly pushes conventions and challenges our comfort zone.
This seemed to be a fitting effect in an area that has been continually pushed outside of its natural comfort zone over the past decade. The next production had a very different feel, I knew I was not in Shoreditch anymore.
The Lady of Burma
For most of us the daily struggle is domesticated and mundane, (like Sub Transmission without the sound track), but there are a handful of people who not only believe in justice, but also make great sacrifices for their beliefs. Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is one of those people. The Lady Of Burma tells her story.
Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy; her party won a landslide victory in 1990 (Burma's first multi-party elections for 30 years), but has never been allowed to govern. As a result of the NLD’s popularity, Suu Kyi, was imprisoned by the military dictatorship and remains under their arrest.
The audience takes on the role of ‘visitor’ and ‘rally member’ as Suu Kyi wonders through the index of her life, re-enacting the events that lead her to prison.
Director Richard Shannon juxtaposes the softness of storytelling with the horrors of human rights abuses, while we are left questioning how Suu Kyi, played with incredible poise by Liana Mau Tan Gould, may remain so calm after the catastrophes she has experienced.
Could you fight without shouting? The Lady of Burma does not intend to get your attention by shouting, the events in the play are on the whole understated, so that the subject matter is always the protagonist. Here theatre is used to inform, inspire, and to provoke change, gently forcing you to see freedom as a privilege not experienced by everyone equally.
The plays I saw this week were very different and though I felt that The Lady of Burma was the superior production on this occasion, East London is adding to its theatre scene all the time. Forget East meets West, in my opinion it won't be long before East beats West!
Sub Transmission
The Courtyard Theatre
Written by Simon Humphreys
Presented by Live & Wild Productions
Directed by Ofer Yatziv
www.liveandvivid.co.uk
The Lady Of Burma
In association with the Burma Campaign UK
A Red Fighting Peacock production
The Riverside Studios
Written and directed by Richard Shannon
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Reviews by Lennie Varvarides
Hackney Empire celebrates its fourth annual Spice Festival with a colossal amount of new theatre, music, art and everything in-between. Amidst the colourful program you will find Mr William Shakespeare himself, narrating his very own theatrical story.
Shakespeare In Shoreditch, is a devised project based of the life and work of William Shakespeare, performed by resident theatre company, The Shakespeare In Shoreditch Ensemble, and produced by Lights of London, as part of the Spice Festival.
For an audience member who is not too familiar with the works of William Shakespeare, played enthusiastically by Matthew Wade, this production offers a comprehensive portrait of the young man who leaves his wife and children in Stratford upon Avon to seek fame and fortune in London.
Back in the fifteenth century there was only one place for something as disrespectable as theatre to exist, that place was Shoreditch. On Curtain Road stood James Burbage’s Theatre, built with his very own hands. By the time Shakespeare arrived it was already showing the works of Christopher Marlow.
Shakespeare's talents went unnoticed while he worked in the theatre stables, looking after the horses and acting as prompt on Marlow's scripts, until Marlow (Matt Gardner) took a risk on the young poet. On the one hand this risk temporally saves the theatre financially, but on the other it eventually results in Marlow's own demise; how very Shakespeare.
When James Burbadge (Michael McEvoy) dies there is a wonderful sense of romanticism as Shakespeare and the other players commit themselves to taking down the theatre and rebuilding it a new. This new building would become, the Globe Theatre.
Shakespeare In Shoreditch (directed by Wendy Richardson) feels more like Theatre in Education then Fringe Theatre. Even though the script was very cleverly intertwined with facts and content from some of Shakespeare's most popular plays, (The Taming of a Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night Dream), it was all a little too safe for me to be personally moved.
That said, however; it is an informative and enjoyable production with a completely competent troupe of actors. Lee Griffiths, who plays Will Kemp and The Earl of Southampton, is both comical and extremely comfortable on stage and is a prime example of how well rehearsed and prepared the company are. You can also see this production as part of the Shoreditch Festival on Saturdays 2, 9, 16 and 23 of August at 3pm upstairs at The Old Blue Last.
Hackney Empire
291 Mare Street, E2
Jenůfa (Její pastorkyňa, "Her Stepdaughter" in Czech) was written by the nineteenth-century Czech playwright, Gabriela Preissová and has been adapted for the stage by Timberlake Wertenbaker. It Premiers this month at The Arcola Theatre.
This adaptation may appear a simple story about how fickle love is and how attraction does not always quantify for a long lasting relationship, but it is more then that, it is about betrayal, and how we are often betrayed by those that love us dearly. This simplicity was often predictable, but directed with a clear vision and performed with a paramount cast. The stage design (by Louis Price) echoes the minimalism of the direction as well as the story and heightens the anticipation of a dark secret lurking in the woods, or should I say, behind the chains…
Jenufa (Jodie McNee) never quite gets out of her stepmother’s shadow (Kostelnichka, played with authority by Paola Dionisotti). Jenufa is painted as the respectable girl and the apple of Kostelnichka's eye but she is at the mercy of either her lover (Steva, played by the dashing Ben Mansfield) or her lover's rival, (Latsa, played with constant passion by Oscar Pearce). One impregnates Jenufa, the other slashes her face, yet Jenufa seems passive to her predicament-almost as though she deserved it. I wanted to feel sorry or at least empathic towards Jenufa, but I was not convinced by Jenufa's godly ability to forgive both men for what they had done.
Religious guilt was a constant overtone within Jenufa and the play seems to imply that only marriage will be a single women's salvation. It made me question my own cultural background (Greek Cypriot) and I found that things, unfortunately, have not really changed enough. Single daughters are still an embarrassment and pride is still the Achilles Heel for parents or, in the case of Jenufa, step-parents.
Would I recommend Jenufa to my friends? Yes, because the play is engaging, regardless of the exposition. Would I take my parents to see it? Yes, because my parents would be able to identify with both the small village community and the social pressures imbedded within that community and through identifying, they would enjoy it. Did I enjoy it? Yes and I suggest you catch it while it's on.
Jenufa
Produced by the Natural Perspective Theatre Company.
Arcola Theatre
For innovative and exciting new theatre productions this January, take a hop, skip and jump down to London Bridge and visit new writing festival: Write Side of the Brain.
Local production companies, Burning Houses and Missfit Productions spent the long and watery Autumn of 2007 scouting out the best new plays, the most innovative new poets and the most exciting new talents.
The festival runs from 21 January to 6 February at The Miller, 96 Snowfields Road SE1, and gives artists an opportunity to try new work out in front of an audience and promote it to industry professionals.
Burning Houses and Missfit Productions work in partnership, stimulating new scripts and backing innovation in theatre. If one of your resolutions for 2008 is to put pen to paper, get in touch; you could be part of the new movement for 2009.
Find out more about the Write Side of the Brain Festival visit www.missfitproductions.org
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