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Showing posts with the label short plays

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Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

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Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience
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Men chasing older women: The Fat Man's Wife

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Remaining un-produced until 2004, The Fat Man's Wife by Tennessee Williams is having its UK Premiere at the Canal Cafe Theatre . It is a fragment of a play rather than a fully fledged piece that is about a sophisticated society lady who has to make a choice... Should she stay with her rich philandering husband or run off to Mexico with a poor young playwright?  It's Hobson's Choice set in the Upper East Side . Written in 1937, it is perhaps it is probably also the first case of a MILF relationship portrayed on stage. But it a fascinating look at how some of Tennessee Williams's observations on women, relationships and situations would later develop. And even if it is a bit predictable, running under an hour it makes for a none too taxing early evening diversion.
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Love gone wrong and other flatshares: Love Bites

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The latest from the Love Bites series, Apartment, which ended its brief run at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden last weekend was again an opportunity for some witty reflections on the theme of love, this time with the theme of apartments being the common thread between them. The Love Bites series showcases some excellent new writing and performances from emerging playwrights, actors, directors and illustrators. It was a short evening of four plays this time around and each were funny and insightful in their own way. It is a real treat to see such a high quality writing and performances in a fringe venue and it is well worth seeking out when they stage their next instalment. The first, Zoned Out by Craig Donaghy and performed by Thea Beyleveld was a monologue about moving in with a boyfriend who lived near Amersham and giving up her flatshare in West Hamstead, only to find out that he wanted to break up with her. It was frank and honest and knowing in a way that any Londoner coul
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