Featured Post

Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

Image
Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience

Religion and fennel salad: Disgraced

You feel like a voyeur watching Disgraced, the fiery Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar, at the Bush Theatre. Over the course of 90 minutes everything that is civilised and awfully respectable about two New York couples is gradually undone and at times the conversation is so frank and uncomfortable that you forget you are at the theatre.

It turns sour in moments over a fennel salad. As each character presents their views on religion and racial discrimination in today's modern world, they stumble and fall over their arguments and soon there is no turning back from a car crash. It is funny and topical but perhaps a little unnerving, particularly as the recent events in Woolwich bring religion and terrorism back in focus.
The play tells the story of Amir, played by Hari Dhillon. We first meet him as he is posing in his underwear for a portrait that his wife is painting after a night out that ended with Amir being verbally  abused. He is a hotshot corporate lawyer and living in New York's Upper East Side and hoping to soon become partner at the firm. Amir's family came to the US from Pakistan but as he works for a Jewish law firm he conceals that little detail. In fact he conceals many of his origins as he drinks wine, eats pork and generally regards all religion to be of little worth.

Things get complicated when at his wife Emily's insistence (played by Kirsty Bushell), he helps a local iman who has been arrested on terrorism charges. His nephew feels that he is just being harassed by the police and so Amir finds himself being drawn back into the past he has left behind. This sets in motion the events that would then explode at the dinner party.

Emily is also an artist whose is developing Islamist influences in her work. She is hoping that she will get her work shown at the gallery that Isaac (Nigel Whitmey) runs. Isaac's wife Jory (Sara Powell), is a work colleague and friend of Amir's. Isaac and Jory are coming over for dinner to tell her the news.

There is a further (possibly superfluous) complication to the matters but what is amazing about this piece is how all the elements are kept in a fine balance, rarely seeming out of place. It is a piece that is only ninety minutes long, but crackles with cutting dialogue that has you on the edge of the seat. The most shocking things in the piece that elicit gasps from the audience are not elaborate words but small gestures that have much bigger meanings. And despite these shocks the ending is quite cathartic and satisfying.

The cast of five deliver what seems like an exhaustingly intense performances. But what is most remarkable about this play is how it gives you equal time and opportunity to see each characters perspective, even if it is not one that you would necessarily agree with.

The staging of the Bush theatre is designed so that you walk into the theatre as if you are walking into their apartment, and you feel like you are there in the flat. It heightens the feelings of being an observer there. If only they made a cup of tea for everyone (and gave assigned seating) it might calm the nerves a bit.

Photo: Hari Dhillon, Sara Powell, Nigel Whitmey and Kirsty Bushell... Just before the fennel flies... Disgraced runs at the Bush Theatre until 29 June. Tickets available from their website. A chat with other fellow bloggers that includes Disgraced is here.

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 security
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...