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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Theatre: The Emperor Jones


From http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Tuesday night I had the chance to see The Emperor Jones at the National Theatre starring Paterson Joseph. The production originated at the Gate Theatre in 2005 and has been pumped up and given the usual National Theatre treatment such as loads of cast members on stage for no comprehensible reason, shirtless men, gigantic sets, and a large percussion orchestra. Most of the time that is enough to make a show enjoyable but this time I kind of wished I had seen the original production rather than this monster one. Sure the jungle beats were infectious (and so loud that nodding off even during a bit of a dull exposition was only temporary) and Joseph gives a great performance, but it all seemed like it could have benefited from remaining a bit smaller scale...

The play is about a southern American conman Jones, who establishes a dictatorship in the West Indies, only to find himself facing a people's revolt. It made Eugene O'Neil famous. But it isn't the jolliest night out at the theatre as paranoia, madness, dance and shirtless men take over. It is however a short descent as the entire performance lasts about seventy minutes without an interval.

Watching it with Fliss, she commented if she was going to blog about this piece she would just say... "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... That was interesting" and "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... The black men sure were fit". They sure were. I don't think she would rate it as one of her most entertaining nights out... Even if we both were grooving along to the jungle beat... I suggested to her that perhaps she might have found it more entertaining if it drew more relevant parallels to the present day with the music of today... Maybe a few samples of Jungle Boogie. At least then you could groove out of the theatre...

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