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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...

Best laid plans: Gracie @Finborough

It’s a whirlwind life for Gracie. The title character in this piece who is its storyteller and survivor. She was born into a polygamous religious cult, taken across the US border at the age of eight after her mother became the wife of an elder there. The eighteenth wife. As she reaches fifteen she hopes for a husband who is sweet and kind. And not too old. But those controlling her life have other ideas. 

The European premiere of Joan MacLeod’s work has been playing at the Finborough Theatre on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. While it is a work of fiction, it’s packed full of evocative detail that it feels like it could be true. Especially with Carla Langley’s engaging performance in the title role. Over the course of an 90 minute monologue she moves from childlike optimism to fear and entrapment then hope following an escape. 

It’s part adventure, part mundane life and part horror story. Particularly as it becomes clear of the life set out before her as part of “God’s plan”. Or rather, religion used as a cover for abuse and criminal activity.
The programme notes that the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has been suspected of trafficking women across states and borders. Sometimes for polygamous marriages against their will. While the piece doesn’t depict violence or sexual abuse, it feels like it’s there all the same. This is a simple production. There are few effects which focus on the details and the story to be told.

Part of the Canadian Playwrights at the Finborough series and Directed by Gemma Aked-Priestley, Gracie concludes on May 15

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