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Death becomes her: A Brief List Of Everyone Who Died @finborough

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For a natural process, death is not a topic that comes up naturally for people. We ask how people are doing but expect the response to be “I’m great”, not “I’m not dead yet”. And so for the main character in A Brief List of Everyone Who Died, Graciela has a death issue. Starting with when she was five and found out only after the matter that her parents had her beloved dog euthanised. So Graciela decides that nobody she loves will die from then on. And so this piece becomes a fruitless attempt at how she spends her life trying to avoid death while it is all around her. It’s currently having its world premiere  at the Finborough Theatre . As the play title suggests, it is a brief list of life moments where death and life intervene for the main character, from the passing of relatives, cancer, suicides, accidents and the loss of parents. Playwright Jacob Marx Rice plots the critical moments of the lives of these characters through their passing or the passing of those around them. Howeve

Theatre Readings: Open Stage Angelic Tales

As part of its Open Stage programme this year, the Theatre Royal Stratford East is holding a series of readings of new plays this week, curated by Rikki Beadle-Blair. I caught The Miriam Gospel by Ben Fensome on Tuesday which is a surreal roller coaster ride into this history of homosexuality.

Thanks to the internet, you don't need to read a review but can watch the performance below. If you're pressed for time, I would recommend skipping to the monologue by a leopard slug, which comes in at 1 hour 50 seconds. It describes in graphic slimy detail slug sex and is disgusting and not for the squeamish. And I loved it.

This is a series to watch for potential future playwrights and performers. Readings run until Saturday for now but more are to come later this year... It is worth a look and make sure you stay for the post show discussions as they are wonderfully entertaining and insightful about how the actors and writers grappled with the material and got it into shape...

They were encouraging audience feedback and tweets, but @johnnyfoxlondon and I prefer to boo...

#openstage boo: angelic tales - the Miriam Gospel (mp3)

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