Exploring diverse cultures through the medium of the performing arts
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Hang Time5The curtain lifts on three Black men hanging from a tree. It is a shocking sight. Director Zora Howard has the audience sit with this tableau for an uncomfortably long time. We become complicit, a part of the mob that lynched these men. The silence lasts a few minutes – it feels much longer. Hang Time is set in a purgatorial space (there is a hint of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos and the…
Woody Sez 4 Woody Sez was conceived in the early 2000s, and last performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009. It is the rousing story of the life and times of American folk icon Woody Guthrie, whose powerful ballads were a vehicle for social protest that railed against injustice. With all that has happened since – the 2008 crash, the increasing disparity between rich and poor, the rise of Donald…
Badgers3Badgers is an ambitious but ultimately flawed effort to explore the art of letting go and the ethics of true crime. It is the story of the efforts of Meles Costas – a failed podcaster – to find out what happened to a musician who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier. Her questions lead her to the reclusive Bridget Brock, and an unsettling folk horror story. The play’s biggest flaw is…
Cathy 5 A death impacts everyone differently. The grief felt by a spouse is not the same as that felt by a child, grandchild or parent. None of these griefs are right or wrong, but each one is essentially unknowable to those not experiencing it. This is the essential truth at the heart of Cathy, the story of the fractures that emerge in a family after the death of beloved Grandad Tommy. He leaves…
The Plot 4 Two brothers play a game, betting on who can avoid getting burned by a lit match. Tom wants to play. Rob goes along good-humouredly. They might be in purgatory, or hiding inside their heads from all-too-imaginable horrors awaiting them in the real world. It turns out these brothers have already bet for more than just matchsticks and singed fingers. They are two of the plotters in the…
Hamlet Redux 3 A full production of Hamlet, with all the bells and whistles and no cuts, might take anything up to four hours to perform. It is a bold choice, therefore, for the Prague Shakespeare Company and director Dmitry Troyanovsky to try and dash through their Hamlet Redux in just under 60 minutes. While the ambition of the effort is to be lauded, it turns out that this requires just too…
The Guilty 4.5 Sequestered alone in drab call-centre bunker with a telephone console, Russel Tovey plays Joe, a police officer who seemingly has been demoted to this desk job responding to 911 emergency calls. Wound as tight as a spring, Tovey brings a full-throttle intensity to this almost one-man psychological thriller. Phone calls are placed and received at a rapid-fire pace – we can barely…
Through the Shortbread Tin 4 In 1760, Scottish writer James Macpherson published a book of fragments of Gaelic poetry translated into English. As the 1760s progressed, he published further poetry, eventually collected under the title The Poems of Ossian, which purported to be the stories of a third-century Scottish bard, kept alive through Gaelic oral tradition. The authenticity of the poems was…
Erika. Reflections on a New Era 1 Erika. Reflections on a New Era is a well-intentioned production, but unfortunately one in which everyone involved proves well out of their depth. It is quickly clear Enebro Teatro have given themselves far too much to do, and are ill equipped to tackle subjects as complex and diverse as the refugee crisis, the legacy of Franco in Spain and the reappearance of…
not for glory 4 Entering the performance space where not for glory is to be performed, audience members are strongly encouraged to avail themselves of earplugs. It is the first indication that what is to come will be an overwhelming sensory assault, in the best possible way. not for glory is in essence a deconstruction of the highly pressurised worlds of competitive Highland Dance, Irish Dance and…
Bury the Hatchet 4 Reviewer's rating This story is best known as the ditty where Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. As this lively and informative show tells us, even this scant information is wrong in almost every particular. It was 19 blows her stepmother received, the initial murder weapon was more likely to have been something other than an axe, and it was a hatchet,…
5 The Singer opens up a thrilling new perspective on what a singer is, and on how a song can be made, heard and felt. This “gig theatre” is built around the intertwined journeys of two singers. Joe is a talented Deaf musician and songwriter who conducts a Deaf choir and sings with his hands and whole body. Andy is a hearing busker, desperate to reclaim the life he once had as a hit songwriter.…
