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Showing posts with the label Guy Retallack

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False alarms: Diagnosis @finborough

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Nobody likes Cassandra, and like the Trojan princess who was given the gift of being able to see the future but cursed so that nobody would believe her, the woman at the centre of this piece could see into the not-too-distant future. She can see that disaster is about to strike. But she’s dismissed as a vulnerable, crazy lady who maybe had a bit too much to drink. This is the premise of “Diagnosis,” currently playing at the Finborough Theatre , written and performed by Athena Stevens.  You enter the Finborough under surveillance. The camera is pointed at the audience, and it soon becomes clear that we are somewhere in the not-too-distant future in London. A city where surveillance already abounds so we can capture all sorts of crimes taking place (albeit not in ultra-high definition).  In the future, every police station will record interviews with an audience with “vulnerable persons” involved. This is to ensure no police misconduct occurs. A police officer (Ché Walker) is in...

Racing with the clock: Tick, Tick... Boom! @BHTse20

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Watching Tick, Tick... Boom at the Bridge House Theatre , a play about young thirty-somethings in 1990 makes you realise that if they were alive today, they would be becoming sexagenarians. The passing of time and the struggles of being creative in New York are at the heart of this piece. Now it's over to a new generation to sing about about Jonathan Larson's anxieties about creativity, composition and getting older. It's made all the more bittersweet given the composer (and lead character Jon), Jonathan Larson died in 1996, six years after this piece is set. His death was also just before his show, Rent would open and become a big success. Tick, Tick... Boom!  was initially conceived as a solo work for Larson after his struggles to mount a show he was developing. After his death, it was reworked into a three-hander which is the version that we see today. While there are many musical theatre references, particularly to Sondheim, what’s interesting about the show ...