Featured Post

Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

Image
If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Sensory illusions: The Chairs

Extant's production of Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs, which concluded its run at The Albany in Deptford this week, casts blind actors in the lead roles of old man and old woman. In doing so it  gives the opportunity to think more about the play's themes of isolation, alienation and invisibility and makes this absurdist piece fascinating to watch and listen to.

The Chairs is about an elderly couple who welcome a series of invisible guests to their isolated house in what seems like a post-apocalyptic time. They are waiting for the arrival of an important orator and while they wait (and put out chairs for the increasing number of invisible guests) they reveal fragments of their lives. When the orator finally does arrive the couple decide to take drastic action knowing that their life couldn't get any better.


The post apocalyptic world might be the result of global warming or rising sea levels that have changed the world, but we are not told and nor does it matter. Their home actually looks like the bits remaining of Battersea Power Station with its fantastic set design by Andrea Carr. In the space of the Albany, which feels like you are inside of a spaceship, you could be forgiven for thinking you were on some time travelling voyage that has just stopped at Deptford for the evening.

Heather Gilmore and John Wilson Goddard as the couple hold your attention with their fine characterisations of an old couple that have been together for an awfully long time, carrying out pointless tasks and engaging in idle banter day in and day out.

Extant is Britain's only professional performing arts company of visually impaired people. Its mission is to promote the arts and culture of the visually impaired community through a programme of research and development and productions such as this. Ionesco's The Chairs becomes even more intriguing when you contemplate the invisible guests, the sound effects and the descriptive nature of this piece.

While it has finished its run for now... Keep an eye out for future shows from this company.

Photo credit: rehearsal photo Terry Braun from production

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...