Immersive 1984 @ Hackney Town Hall

Presented in the epic and imposing surroundings of Hackney Town Hall, 1984 attempts to translate the sprawling and intense novel into a production of about an hour. Upon arrival you are provided a number badge and some instructions, then invited into the main hall space where there is a bar, and 2 performers singing country-folk inspired music. From here the production begins, first in the main area, then through additional areas of the space where some information is revealed. There are inklings of participation for the audience when there is some interaction with the performers, and being asked to stand or sit, or move spaces.

However the majority of the production is observed; it is not discovered, the audience are moved around in an orderly fashion. Moments of the story unfold, but often without context or stakes, meaning that it is hard to follow, even for those who know the book well.

The design makes exceptional use of the space, and merges video and live performance to positive effect; the design alone is not enough to create a properly immersive and engaging experience for me, however.

THE BELT - Ambiguous Dance Company @ The Coronet Theatre

The Belt, from Korea’s Ambiguous Dance Company, is a two-part event.

First, Past, is a site specific exploration of identity through repetitive movement, with 6 short performances which take place across different areas of The Coronet theatre. Billed as “immersive” i would argue the label does the work a disservice. Instead it is site-specific, with the movements inspired by the spaces, and vice versa. Throughout this section the audience are moved around the space by guides - this is a bit unceremonious, and moved at an intense pace (so much so that my group lost people more than once). Nonetheless the pieces were thought provoking in their own right.

Second, Future, takes the ideas of durational performance and boredom from contemporary theatre and places them into the context of dance. Situated in the main performance space at the Coronet, and lasting over an hour, the company perform a non-stop piece of choreography to a continuous techno DJ set. This on its own is exciting, however coupled with a movement vocabulary which challenges perfection, it is quite thrilling overall picture. The movement takes classical dance movement and muddies it, making it look like street or club dancing….while still underscored by strong technique and precision (despite looking to the untrained eye completely imprecise). The sheer endurance of the piece is breathtaking.

A delightful evening, which challenged multiple preconceptions.

I, Malvolio @ Sam Wannamaker Playhouse

SO, I have seen this show once or twice, as anyone who spends time here will know. That known, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see it live performed by Tim, and in the glorious Sam Wannamaker Playhouse.

Having adapted this script to work on an audience of well behaved adults myself, I was keen to see how it would be adapted for adults in this particular space and time. All the propriety of people’s expectations for the traditional practices space (don’t get me started) piled on top of the almost rockstar status Crouch has amongst a particular subset of theatre lovers.

Cleverly, this production undermined that sense of formality and seriousness from the start. While the adults didn’t quite play along in the same way a room full of teenager would, Tim was able to pick out moments of engagement and behaviour in a manner akin to a stand up comic.

The acoustics of the space enabled a level of intimacy in Crouch’s performance as well, really performing the labour of performance, the effort of the performer to get the audience to understand.

A delightful evening full of scathing contempt for theatre. Just what we love.

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead - Complicité at Bristol Old Vic

Complicité’s whimsical and highly theatrical approach to plays lends itself beautifully to adaptations of novels, to the creation of worlds that morph and jump in ways that most play scripts can only dream of. The company’s latest offering is no different, adapting the 2009 novel Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead. Unlike previous Complicité adaptations I have seen previously, this one was (I’m told) quite faithful to the book, and relied on a central narrator in a manner that was quite effective. The incredible Kathryn Hunter was the primary voice as Janina, a self-described lone wolf living alone in the Polish countryside, protecting the animals in the forest.

As is to be expected with Complicité, the use of sound and visual projection was integral - and in this case used to create some truly beautiful imagery. Birds flying above, fire engulfing a building, but also more simple images like a secondhand shop whose clothes were embodied later on in the play as we met an increasing number of characters. In particular, the use of a glass wall was used to great effect to create various spaces and effects, distancing the speaking characters at times, or showing the severe isolation that Janina is experiencing.

While for the most part the wizardry supported the story, there were a couple of moments which felt superfluous - a “dance break” of sorts accompanied by hard electronic music, for example. Additionally, the final image of the play (I won’t ruin it for you) did seem to undermine Janina’s power, for me. We spent 3+ hours admiring this woman as we learned more and more about her activities and how she was taking control of the increasingly unruly situation around her, only for it to be undermined making her appear helpless in the final moments of the play.

All of this said, the latest Complicité offering is well worth seeing, if only to witness the incredible physical and text performance put on by Kathryn Hunter and the supporting actors. Beyond that, however, it is an exciting and challenging story, presented in a deeply theatrical manner which frankly, we need right now after years of Netflix dramas and social distancing.

Come Home Again - Es Devlin at Tate Modern

A crisp white structure stands in the shadow of the Tate Modern, facing out to the river. A light reflection of St Paul’s Cathedral across the Thames. But this structure is bisected, revealing intricate drawings of animals, birds, and insects, blown up beyond scale. Es Devlin, renowned lighting designer (or as i call her, light magician) has created this magical space, in the grove between the birch trees. On its own the structure is compelling and inviting — you want to climb up the steps and explore, looking at each drawing up close. Sounds of birds and insects pipe into the space, reminding us that before the city and the people, far before, this was natural space. The species depicted represent those on London’s protected list. These inhabitants who we might fear, or worse, shoo out of our houses — who have every right we do to be here (if not more!).

The magic is taken further, however, when each night at 7pm, two choirs fill the structure for a performance accompanied by a light play which highlights the magic of these creatures. Each choir sings in a language other than English — intentionally selected by Es Devlin to represent, but also make us consider the relationship between disappearing species of creatures and the parallel disappearance of languages in creating of monocultures. We visited Friday 30 September, on a windy and rainy evening — but we were not alone braving the elements. Our choirs sang in Bulgarian and in Liturgical Latin, their voices cutting through the wind and rain, through the noise of London on a busy evening, to create a moment almost prayer-like.

I feel honoured to bear witness to this, and hope I’m not the only one compelled by it. On our journey home, we stopped to watch a rather large snail make its way across our walkway, with a renewed sense of wonder and awe.

You can read more about Devlin’s inspiration and process for the piece here.

The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco @ Almeida Theatre

In the week since I saw this beautiful production, the world has turned inside out. Last weekend the frantic resonance of The Old Man and The Old Woman echoed of Covid, of restrictions. The “protests” in Canada were still ongoing, with thousands of Canadians, supported by the American right, occupying our capital to protest perceived injustice — public health measures. The police cleared this out, and within just a handful of days, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the entire world is on edge. The parting moments of this production, things figuratively (and literally) falling apart, a pile of rubble as The Speaker gives THE IDEA, keep flashing in my mind as I watch the daily news.

This production, which playfully adjusts and adapts the script — living in it rather than seeing it as a museum piece — demands the audience think about the people we don’t see, and the pressures we put on one another. The spectacle of performance in the public sphere, in politics. Supported by truly outstanding design, the production leaned in to reminding us that it was a play from the very opening moments, and any time the audience might start to get sucked in to the “world of the play”, pulls that from under us, reminding us again — THIS is spectacle. THIS is performance. This isn’t to say it is serious. One would be doing a disservice to Ionesco to miss out on the darkly comic opportunities in the script — certainly not a risk here. It is shockingly funny, irreverent, self referential. And as such, also deeply moving and resonant.

It is surprisingly uncommon to see this sort of playful irreverence on the English stage. Try to see it if you can, before March 5.

oh hey there. . .

It’s been awhile. Surprise! I’ve moved. Across the ocean.

Thrilled to be back in the UK and finally feeling like I have some sense of things. Moving across the ocean during a Global pandemic is not for the faint of heart.

It has been a challenging and wonderful almost-year since An Acorn. I was absorbed with gratitude for the support for our digital production, produced from our flats, funded by my savings account. It was an exhilarating experience to say the least, and I never would have guessed that we’d be fortunate to have a re-mount in collaboration with Oldham Coliseum just a few short months later.

So I’m back in the London area. Starting to see shows again. After a bit of a rest, expect to see more in this space.

Out of Order by Forced Entertainment @ Southbank Centre

As a follower of Forced Entertainment’s work through video streams and available online recordings, I was thrilled to learn that my time in London would overlap their short run of Out of Order at Southbank Centre. 

Chairs begin downstage in a line, appearing orderly, while a table sits upstage. The performance space is elevated several feet above the actual stage, with caverns around on all sides. This lasts approximately 30 seconds, before the 6 performers (3 men, 3 women, all wearing identical plaid suits, white shirts, and clown face) enter, and move them. From here, there is incessant movement; while the movement peaks and valleys, even the moments of rest and stillness are filled with the memory of movement. 

What follows is an ongoing, highly choreographed yet impulsive and appearing improvised set of games; the actors fight and chase, they play with balloons, and chairs. They lead and follow, repeat and repeat, even when they are visibly questioning the action. At times certain characters have the strength to resist - to sit outside and comment. But this is fleeting, and they are shortly again sucked into following. 

There are many layers, and none. Forced regularly do not impose a specific feeling or intention for how a piece should affect, but rather work in layered ideas, providing thoughts into the space, but no real answers, demanding the audience engage and fill in the blanks. At times we are overwhelmed with where to look, or at others pulled into the individual actions of one actor or another, and at yet others sitting, in silence, with our own thoughts. The simultaneous danger and inevitability of following along loomed loud for me in watching this work. 

This is Forced’s first piece without words. It is not silent, however; two songs underscore various aspects (again, in repetition), and the rhythm of the balloons, or horns, or boots, or chairs, or even actors breathing, make a compelling score. 

As a lovely bonus, the artistic director (Tim Etchells) and the 6 members of the company, shared their thoughts and answered questions in a 30+ minute Q&A following the show. It was exciting to hear some of my own interpretations of their work and ideas for how to engage audiences echoed in their approaches and intent. I’ve said this for years, but again…if you have the chance to see Forced Entertainment’s work in any capacity, do. 

[blank] by Alice Birch @ Donmar Warehouse

Alice Birch’s new play, [blank] focuses in on the experiences of women in the justice system, encountering it from a variety of angles. We see women with addiction issues, women facing abuse, children in challenging parental situations, women who have ruptured family relationship. We see women guards and officers, psychologists. Young children. Adult children.

The cast play multiple roles, and the stage becomes multiple spaces. What is stunning is how little the actors change scene to scene, all wearing dark trousers, a coloured top, and white trainers. While they change yet stay the same, the space is increasingly messy, bearing the remnants of what came before, but also deconstructed. As the space deconstructs, the use of video increases, capturing the images of these women and their trauma in time.

Evocative of Churchill’s Top Girls dinner party, there is a scene in the middle of the play where the actors are at a dinner party - kind, open, middle class, with posh dishes, and lots of wine. The party is all long-time friends except one, a new girlfriend, whose presence sparks discussion of misbehaved pasts, which quickly seep into the current time. Wine is consumed, then drugs, and suddenly these women who have introduced themselves as being on the professional side of the justice system are offending themselves. This scene’s most chilling moment is when the young daughter comes in, asks for water, and wine is poured out of a wine glass to give to her, cocaine still on the table. The stark differences of experience based on the class of these women versus the others is haunting. Birch demands we, the comfortable theatre audience, confront our comforts and lack of true efforts to help others.

As always, Birch’s use of language is exceptional - words are weapons from her pen, and in the mouths of these actors.

The only oddity, for me, was a break into song toward the middle - while the lyrics made sense, the choices of movements and performance style in this moment felt stilted and half-baked. For me, it was jolting, but not as jolting as I think it was intended to be.

Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. by Caryl Churchill @ Royal Court

Presented in a single evening, Churchill’s new quartet of plays at the Royal Court dig into the relationship between the stories we tell ourselves, and contemporary news. It is easy to simply view the plays as about stories alone - however this is to do a disservice to Churchill’s omnipresent political commentary pulsing through any of her work.

Glass is about a teen girl who is made of glass; she sits atop the mantlepiece amongst the other beautiful things, to protect her from the harshness of other youth. Her emotions are visible to others, and despite her family’s efforts to protect her, she is vulnerable once she connects with someone, who is also troubled. Perhaps it is because I am the mother of a teen, but this piece shouted for me about the dangers of trying too hard to protect our children from the realities of the world.

Kill is a classic Churchillian dark monologue. Told from the point of view of a Greek god who recounts the story of a family who murder and fight amongst themselves across generations, simultaneously recalling the founding stories of Western civilization rooted in violence, and the impact of generational trauma. He is joined on stage by a child who draws, and occasionally repeats his words; this simple inclusion underscores the relationship between how children learn to see the world and the stories they take in both intentionally and unintentionally.

Bluebeard begins with friends at a dinner party, gossiping about a mutual friend who has been discovered to have committed some crimes. These crimes are macabre in nature, and the discussion moves from the point where they distance themselves from this friend, to beginning to explain his behaviour, to where they have managed to justify it. In the post #MeToo moment, the play forces the audience to reckon with the moral gymnastics many people do in order to continue to be friends with someone or to enjoy their art.

Finally, Imp is the longest, and initially the most naturalistic of the four plays; two older cousins who live together entertain a niece and a young friend. The conversations are absurd in the way that most awkward extended family conversations can be; until it is revealed that the woman, Dot, believes to have an imp who does wishes captured in a bottle. Throughout the play the characters opinions of one another and of the related relationships oscillate, as they tell themselves stories to help understand their world. The introduction of the imp merely amplifies the focus on the fact that often we need stories, however fantastical, to get by.

The cast are outstanding, and director James MacDonald cleverly manages the tempo of the scripts perfectly - not only within themselves, but across the evening. The addition of circus performers between the first and second, and second and third plays proved ingenious - a necessary yet haunting sorbet which visually represented these same mental and moral gymnastics we all perform to keep on.

Now Is The Time To Say Nothing by Caroline Williams & Reem Karrsli @ Battersea Arts

We all sit in individual chairs, facing away from one another headphones on, staring at televisions. The room is dark and comfortable. Silence hugs us.

The TV tells us what to do; it filters images for us, gives us the headlines, and then pushes us beyond them. Who are the individuals affected? How are they affected? What is it like to live in a war zone, and then to choose to leave? What about those you leave behind?

It is easy for us to put war in a bucket, far away, distant. But when we are faced with the real humans impacted by it, you can’t turn away.

As the play continues, the TV guides us further, providing instruction, breaking us out of our individual nests and demanding connection. Acknowledging that sometimes we don’t have a choice, while still making the audience feel safe.

The construction of this experience is simple, but its impact lasting and powerful. See this if you can.

Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge @ Wyndham's Theatre via NT Live

I caught the NT Live airing of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s return to the West End with Fleabag, a run she has declared will be her last of the play, which has dominated since its 2013 debut. Unlike the TV series of the same name (and subject), the stage play is told only by her, in direct address, whilst sitting on a tall chair. From this perch, she contorts and cajoles, taking on the personas and judgements of people in her life, as she relays her messy and complicated life to her listener.

The nuance in the work is astounding. The tiniest gesture, tilt of the head, appears effortless and fresh and yet is so highly choreographed. Waller-Bridge is an engaging performer, able to hold her audience with the raise of an eyebrow. The physical work is surprising in its subtlety - she appears to not move at all and then suddenly be completely contorted and hanging off the chair, or standing, or completely embodying her sister or rat face or any of the amazing characters she brings to life.

And the sound. THE SOUND. Some of the most delicately curated, perfectly timed I have heard, ever.

What was interesting, attending this in NT live after her years of tours, and after the wild success of the TV show on BBC and subsequently Prime, that it felt absent of too much surprise (aside from the scenes that differ from the TV show). The audience were there to revel rather than to learn. While this was fun, I would love to enjoy it in a room where everyone, myself included, hasn’t an inkling of the depths of this woman’s soul.

review. The Lion in Winter by James Goldman @ Grand Theatre (London, ON)

The Lion In Winter is a darkly comic re-imagining of the story of King Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitane in their epic battle of wills. Their machinations use their children as chess pieces, always vying for power through the manipulation or tricking of one or another. Krista Jackson's production takes a scene or so to warm up, however once the cast settle in to the quick pace it begins to crackle with energy. The actors are extremely well cast -- of particular note is the delightfully cunning Brenda Robins as Eleanor. With so many twists and turns, the script would almost be exhausting, however Robins deft turns in energy and objective keep it from growing stale. Sarah Afful is also notable as Alais, who in the hands of a lesser actor would come across as melodramatic. 

The one piece that remains puzzling is the design; featuring three pillars to create multiple rooms and space, they are covered in a spackled black paint which does not align with the richness of some of the costumes, nor does it quite contrast fully. Similarly, the overall look of the costuming lacks a cohesive voice and sense of style, resulting in looking a bit thrown together.