Posts

Showing posts with the label Marli Siu

Featured Post

Sex, violence and caviar: Men's Business @finborough

Image
Life's a dog in Men's Business. It's a nasty, cruel life where amongst the banality of everything, love, or something resembling a bit of it, exists out of a butcher's shop. And in between feeding dogs or chopping up offcuts of meat to sell as pet food, there's always time for sex and violence. The play gets into these dark and disturbing themes, inviting the audience to immerse themselves in this claustrophobic world. It's not a pleasant night at the theatre. Still, the intensity of the piece in the confined space of the Finborough Theatre and the exploration of these ideas make for an engrossing experience.   This is a new translation by Simon Stephens of Franz Xaver Kroetz's work. Initially published in 1972 and would later be expanded in the piece Through The Leaves, the action is set in a butcher's shop.  We're introduced to Charlie (Lauren Farrell), who inherited the shop from her father. Family don't seem to be around anymore. All she has...

The eighties are calling: The Ocean At The End of The Lane @NationalTheatre

Image
The Dorfman Theatre at the National is transformed into a thicket of imagination (and a few scares) in this brisk and evocative adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book of the same name by Joel Horwood. Even if you're unfamiliar with the book, this production directed by Katy Rudd, quickly establishes a strange and unusual world. And not just because it was set in 1983 when T-shirts were always pastel colours and hair had to have a perm. With a strong cast and endless theatrical tricks, you'll find yourself enthralled in its exploration around how people remember the past and the blurring of reality and fantasy that come with memories and time. Opening with a funeral, a man returns to his hometown and stops by the place where he remembers a girl called Lettie who he knew as a young man. There he encounters her grandmother again and soon is transported back to the time when they knew each other as a boy, which just so happens to be the early 1980s. The boy (Samuel Blenki...