Posts

Showing posts with the label Keith Bunin

Featured Post

Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

Image
For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...

The other path: The Unbuilt City @kingsheadthtr

Image
Life love and legacy is at the heart of The Unbuilt City, Keith Bunin’s play having its European premiere at the King’s Head Theatre . And a lot of talk about sex with men over a bottle of bourbon. But all told it’s a delicate and contemplative two-hander marked by sensitive and warm performances. Set on a cold afternoon in February. Jonah (Jonathan Chambers) arrives at a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights. His mission is to persuade Claudia (Sandra Dickinson) to sell her secret art collection to a university archive. Particularly her documents relating to an architect and his unrealised plans for New York City.  But even if she can’t afford to heat her house and debts are mounting, she won’t part with her collection to anyone. She wants to know why Jonah is acting as a free agent. What are his passions, his regrets and his loves. Over the course of the piece each reveal a little about themselves and what things could have been.  Bunin’s piece The Busy World Is Hushed was set agai...