Featured Post

A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

Image
It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...

Theatre: Two Gentlemen of Verona


source:http://www.newstatesman.com

It was a long and fascinating story as to why I found myself at the Barbican Friday evening to see Nos do Morro's production of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. For the purposes of the blog I can attribute it to Dame Fortune and the fact that when I saw AfroReggae with Felicity she had a go at all those white men in the audience trying to dance which turned out to be a source of cheap laughs. After reading my blog, Paul suggested I should go and see this production. I should point out that Paul is another Paul and I am not writing about myself in the third person. It's not that kind of blog...

Anyway, Nos do Morro's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona is a real treat and full of so much energy that you can't help but like it. It is in Portuguese as well which means that I had no idea what they were saying (and the surtitles weren't a direct translation but rather the original Shakespeare text). But I wasn't going to let it bother me like it did in AfroReggae so I just ignored the surtitles after a while. It goes to show that you don't need language to understand passion and energy and excitement. Besides being Shakespeare, you know there is going to be mistaken identity, a woman dressed as a man, a comical subplot, maybe an attempted rape but all gets resolved rather quickly at the end for the better... So it is easy enough to work out where things are going...

This production relies on the actors to create not only the characters but set the scene and this is done with some simple but effective colourful materials and some strategically-placed hands over bare breasts... Traditional Brazilian music featured throughout. By the end of it you felt like it was as much a workout as it was a dramatic performance...

Of course, if you are familiar with Portuguese you are probably going to enjoy it even more (and laugh at the right spots with the jokes as many in the audience were able to do when I was there). But there was a lot to enjoy even without that. The story behind the company is extraordinary enough, but the performances and interpretation of this piece is well worth the effort. It runs until the end of this week.

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...