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A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

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It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...

Love abridged: Uncle Vanya @Thehopetheatre

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Production company Tales Retold , which aims to take a new look at old classics distils the essence and passion of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya into a brisk 90-minute observation on family dysfunctions. And the disputes for money, love and survival in the Russian countryside with too much sun and vodka at hand don't seem too foreign to similar skirmishes nowadays either. It's currently playing at the Hope Theatre . Professor Serebryakov (Rory McCallum) and his young and beautiful second wife Yelena (Esme Mahoney) have come to the country estate run by Uncle Vanya (Adrian Wheeler) and his plain daughter from his first marriage, Sonya (Cassandra Hodges). Their arrival has upset the delicate balance of life at the property with their late nights and random walks. But Uncle Vanya is regretting his life, particularly since he had met Yelena ten years before and never asked her to marry her. And he doesn't think much of the professor. There's a doctor, Astrov (DK Ugonna) who...

Love and war: Creditors @JSTheatre

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Walking into Jermyn Street Theatre to see the new translation of Strindberg's Creditors feels like you're transported to a small seaside hotel in the late 1800s. The sounds, look and feel, takes you there on some unknown Nordic island where the action takes place. And it's gorgeousness lulls you into a false sense of security for the mind games that are about to take place over the next ninety minutes. It opens with Adolf (James Sheldon), talking desperately about the love for his new wife with a man he recently has befriended, Gustaf (David Sturzaker). She's just published a book about her idiotic husband from her first marriage and now gone away for a few days. And her absence is driving Adolf crazy. He's stopped painting and started working on a very sexually provocative sculpture. But his new friend is sowing the seeds of doubt about his wife. He saw her on the ferry chatting to some young men. And as Adolf becomes increasingly neurotic about his new...