The Caucasian Chalk Circle (West Yorkshire Playhouse 9th October 2009)

I really enjoyed this production of Brecht’s play at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Quarry Theatre was an ideal venue for this big production with a choir on stage.  There was that sense of a theatrical event that the National Theatre were trying to achieve with their production of Mother Courage, but none of the fussiness that I experienced on the first night of Deborah Warner’s production.  Shared Experience brought out the theme of story telling really well.  Though the production was three hours long it never felt that it was dragging on.  I felt the characterisation was excellent and the use of the puppet was wonderful.  The singing brought an extra layer of narration and the use of props was imaginative and really set the scene well.  This was a brutal world, where money did not always triumph, and the love story running through the play was a contrast to the corruption and violence.

 Reviews and Previews

The Stage on The Caucasian Chalk Circle,
The Guardian on The Caucasian Chalk Circle

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Dial M for Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 30th September 2009)

This was a beautiful production playing with boundaries between cinema and theatre.  The plot was very straight forward but carefully worked out, which managed to build up tension throughout the two parts.  I felt that we didn’t particularly like any of the characters but we wanted justice to be done in the end.  What I liked most about this production was the overall aesthetic and feel of the production.  The lovely juxtaposition of reds, greys and blacks really worked well to create the atmosphere of a murder mystery and to set this work as a period piece. 

 

Reviews and Previews

Dial M for Murder in the Guardian
Dial M for Murder in the Stage
Telegraph on Dial M for Murder
Dial M reviewd in York Press

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When We Are Married (WYP 21st April 2009)

I think I was surprised. I had read other reviews and I didn’t think that I would enjoy this production, but I had a really good time. it just shows though how diverse the reviews can be. The Telegraph gives the production 5 stars, but Charles Hutchinson in the Yorkshire Evening Press found flaws and The Stage reviewer wasn’t that impressed either. I tended to side with Charles Spencer on this production. For me, the strength was that the production was clearly set in a period of time. When I went to see the play, I had in mind Boeing Boeing, which just doesn’t hold true for 2009. WYP’s When We Were Married didn’t pretend it was relevant to 2009 and so it became a very entertaining evening. The female characters seemed to be much more developed than those in Boeing Boeing and had comments and views on the situation they found themselves in. Even though the status quo was maintained at the end of the play, it felt that the characters has been through a transforming experience. So even though there was a traditional ending, I went away feeling things might be slightly different for the couples, even if it was only slightly different.

Reviews and Previews
When We Are Married; Antony and Cleopatra – tou…
Charles Hutchinson reviews When We Are Married …
When We Are Married; Antony and Cleopatra – tou…
The Stage / Reviews / When We Are Married
When We Are Married; Antony and Cleopatra – tou…
Les Dennis to star in play (From York Press)

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Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness (WYP, 12th March 2009, WYP)

Antony Neilson’s The Wonderful World Of Dissocia deals with bipolar disorder and sets the action in two sphere’s Lisa’s journey and then her hospitalization. The contrast between the two parts of the play comment on each other and create a series of layers which makes this play very powerful as well as entertaining.

Neilson’s Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness is entertaining and any alternative reading is hidden in the slapstick humour. The play is about storytelling and the theatre, and what the theatre can achieve. It was very funny and unpredictable at the same time, as well as being totally entertaining. Like Can Any Mother Help? last week there was no interval, so it takes the audience into the action and the unreality of the events. On the stage of the Courtyard Theatre a Victorian Theatre had been constructed. Making really good use of the playing space, through costumes, props and puppets, the cast of four presented three stories which were very unbelievable and presented with some very crude humour. There was a surprise ending as well.

I felt that the play was meant to be layered, but this didn’t always come across. We were given the impression that a mystery of the troupe would be revealed and is was, but it felt slightly rushed and added on at the end. The play relies too much on building narratives that are intended to make the audience gasp as the performance progresses so the audience are taken along with the surreal world presented to them, and then when the play performed by the troupe merges with the real lives of the troupe, it is difficult for the audience to make the shift.

A good evening’s entertainment without the reflection that we are presented with in The Wonderful World Of Dissocia.

Reviews and Previews
Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness
The Stage / Reviews / Edward Gant’s Amazing Fea…
Theatre review: Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of …

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Can Any Mother Help? (WYP, 5th March 2009)

The epistolary novel was very popular in the eighteenth century, and there have been examples of this form of story telling since, but in a world of email, letter writing has been transformed to the digital format and used less frequently than it was. Can any Mother Help? takes us back to paper, pen and typewriter when it was more complicated to circulate to a number of people. This is a story told through the letters of the women who wrote letters to each other as part of the Cooperative Correspondence Club (CCC). The Club was a secret magazine and the editor passed the letters on to each member. Can Any Mother Help? is the story of the CCC and of the club and is also a patchwork of the individual narratives of the women who wrote to each other. Foursight Theatre use a variety of techniques to tell the story, playing characters who wrote the letters as well as acting narrators. For example, the opening story of the death of a German airman is narrated by one character, while other use the full cast as both character, audience and narrator. There is the story of the correspondent who fell in love with the Bach musician and the woman who wanted another baby. The production manages to interweave the balance of emotions as some of the writers’ stories are funny, and others very sad.

The production runs for 90 mins with no interval, which keeps the audience engrossed throughout.

Reviews and Previews
The Stage / Reviews / Can Any Mother Help Me?
Preview: Can Any Mother Help Me?, West Yorkshir…
Preview: Can Any Mother Help Me?, West Yorkshir… ers on to each member and comments.

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