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Showing posts with the label Rachel Szmukler

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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

A class of their own: HMS Pinafore @KingsHeadThtr

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Charles Court Opera's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore takes life below deck to a new level. Set on a bright yellow submarine in the 1960s, it is a treat. Particularly with some excellent vocal singing from the small cast. It's currently playing at the Kings Head Theatre . As a satire on the enduring preoccupation by the English on class, the piece never feels dated. So shifting the time and place doesn't seem such a bad thing. It's full title HMS Pinafore, or, the lass that loved a sailor pretty much sums up the story. The captain of the HMS Pinafore intends his daughter to marry the first Lord of the Admiralty, but she is in love with a lower-class sailor. Here with a small cast while the chorus is reduced, it allows us to focus on the main action. And the music under the direction of David Eaton on keyboard. The cast works well to balance the demands of the music with the comic elements of the piece. As the lovestruck sailor Ralph Rac...