Cindy Marcolina - Page 18

Being seventeen is hard enough without having to shoulder a climate emergency. At school, Zoe (Mei Henri in her first stage appearance) is a paladin of justice and Rain (Jordan Benjamin) is the new boy who just moved to the neighbourhood. While protestors gather on the east coast to rally against the big corporation East Coast Energy Solutions, the girl convinces Rain to set out on a cross-country trip to find her mother and save the world in the same breath. Crystal Skillman’s play is a dreamer’s guide to heroic activism. It’s a piece with good intent, euphoric in its stagecraft but unconvincing in its story.

The theatre formerly known as Tristan Bates, located just across the road from the Palace in the West End, has undergone a refurbishment and come out of the pandemic with a brand new name and snazzy facelift. Now called the Seven Dials Playhouse, it’s finally opened its doors again with a camp, compassionate story about hurt and acceptance that’s really a tribute to musicals at its core.

Hannah is the youngest of three siblings. There’s Joshua, Ben, and then herself. From the day she was born, she was taught to behave differently with them because Joshua is autistic. We meet Hannah (Rachel Hammond) when she is seven years old and follow her through her uncharacteristic adolescence. Armed with a looping machine and exceptional perceptiveness, Hammond delivers a sincerely bittersweet play directed by Lucy Jane Atkinson about what it feels like living with a person with autism. It’s definitely not all fun and games.

Eleanor (Meaghan Martin) is the daughter of Allison (Flora Montgomery) and Nadine (Amanda Bright). Conceived by Allison on a night-one-stand before meeting her future life partner, the gifted college girl drives back home with her boyfriend Rob to find out who her real father is. With the help of Rob’s private investigator friend, they track down the potential match and briefly destroy their family balance.

“Thirteen is young for an existential crisis”. Eileen has barely entered her teens when her older sister, Olive, dies of anorexia. It was sudden, during their family Sunday roast. Eileen had made the Yorkshire puddings, so it must be her fault. Rosie Day writes an intense rollercoaster of a play built on pitch-black humour and abrasive prose. The story of Eileen and her broken relations leads to an intelligent reflection on grief and mental health in a society where girls die trying to make themselves look smaller.

There’s a certain gravitas that follows Hamlet, a reverence that seems to accompany the great Dane alone. When you happen to have a centuries-old church at hand for Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, this happenstance only grows. Freddie Fox stars at the Prince and Holy Trinity Church in Guildford acts as “most excellent canopy”. Director Tom Littler’s first take on the most dysfunctional of Danish families comes off as tentative rather than assured, never quite fully coming into itself. 

As if the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse wasn’t already atmospheric enough, it feels like a special treat to witness their first candlelit Hamlet. After directing the colourful A Midsummer Night’s Dream just across the courtyard at the Globe, Sean Holmes goes darker and moodier with our favourite revenge tragedy. George Fouracres is the title character. Known mostly for his comedic work (he was Flute in Holmes’s Dream), he proves himself an eclectic actor and an electric Brummie anti-hero. The play’s not the thing here, Fouracres is.

The last time we had a chat with Michele Austin we lived in a different world. It was 2019 and we were talking about The Hunt at the Almeida. It's shocking to think how much everything has changed since then. Now she's reprising her role in Jamie Lloyd's Cyrano de Bergerac starring alongside James McAvoy. 

Since Hamilton debuted in 2015, the biographical musical genre has been at an all-time high. People love them, look at Six! Charlie Eglinton has now released a concept album for a new one based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life. Peter Shaffer gave us an imaginary account of the lives of the Salzburgian composer in his play Amadeus, but Eglinton’s Saving Mozart is rooted in history and - as Shaffer did to an extent - uses Mozart’s music as the foundation for each song in the show. 

Great minds meet at symposiums, state dinners, in literary circles, in the theatre. They get together and discuss their theories, arguing and tearing each other apart in dramatic fashion. What happens when two of the most famous men of their time clash in a small Hampstead office at the doors of the Second World War?

“I know who I am”, Fidel’s mantra echoes throughout Paul Anthony Morris’s play. But he doesn’t. Nor does the play itself. Conundrum is crowded with glaring themes. It’s about memories, identity, and racism. But it’s also about unlearning societal dogmas and healing your inner child, if you know where to look. And about how parents relate to their children, and about trauma and confidence. Unfortunately, they’re all throwaways. 

Irish politics is, usually, abundant with stereotypes according to British theatre. From gun-toting IRA members to peasants desperately fighting for the right to retain their mother tongue, it’s easy to get carried away with whiskey and a jolly dance. But there won’t be any leprechauns or Riverdance in The 4th Country. Kate Reid’s piece, first seen at VAULT Festival in 2020, is a dark, dark play that shines a light on the historical trauma of Northern Irish people.

So many musicals wish they were as cool, progressive, provocative as Spring Awakening still is since its premiere Off-Broadway in 2006. More than 15 years later and a bunch of awards garnered across the world, it’s still as fresh and stunning in Rupert Goold’s monumental production at the Almeida. Based on a 19th Century banned German play and delicately exploring topics like sex, homosexuality, abortion, and rape in a disapproving, hyper-conservative community, Steven Sater (book and lyrics) and Duncan Sheik’s (music) rock musical has become an evergreen show that society as it is won't be able to surmount thematically.

Every once in a while, we fall prey to the glitz and glam of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age. In the smaller space at Southwark Playhouse, it’s 1929. Daisy Buchanan - who now wants to be referred to with her maiden name, Fay - was in a sanatorium for seven years before escaping, still seemingly drugged up and confused, to find Jay Gatsby and live their extravagant life together. But Gatsby, of course, was killed in his swimming pool. We know it, everyone else seems to know it too. With the help of speakeasy owner Woolfe, Daisy retraces the events that led up to that fateful day.

In the best-case scenario, by the end of the 21st century, the Earth will “only” become warmer by 1.5 degrees Celsius. Realistically, it will be much hotter. Severe heat waves and rising water levels are only two of the main symptoms of this; coral reefs will disappear almost entirely and animal species will go completely extinct. Seas will swallow cities whole. Polar bears will become a fever dream.

When the air gets chillier and talks of Christmas plans begin to pop up in conversation, London starts swarming with every variation of A Christmas Carol known to man. From the Old Vic’s now iconic and classy version to Sh!tfaced Shakespeare’s bawdy and boozy one at Leicester Square Theatre, there’s a Carol for everyone. The Park is joining in the fun this year with another take on the Dickensian Victorian tale of greed and ghosts. Surprisingly, it’s unmistakably political. Alexander Knott’s Cratchit takes the novella’s poor, exploited worker and turns him into a hero for our times in a festive tour de force spearheaded by a terrific John Dalgliesh.

Right before Hex started its previews this past weekend, we sat down with cast members Kat Ronney and Michael Elcock to talk about the National Theatre's new original musical. Directed by Rufus Norris, with music by Jim Fortune, book by Tanya Ronder and lyrics by Norris himself, the show is a retelling of the popular fairy tale Sleeping Beauty.

It doesn’t take much for Wilton’s Music Hall to be atmospheric. The Victorian building, with its balcony, stripping paint, and heartbreakingly beautiful cast-iron pillars, lends itself very well to Christmas ghost stories. All of this, combined with Tom Piper’s ambitious set design and Hayley Egan’s overachieving projections, seems like the perfect production for the theatre’s festive comeback. Too bad The Child In The Snow is a tonally confused and intensely unengaging project.

The Sleeping Trees are doing it all. After their phenomenal first online lockdown panto from last year, they’re back not only with an in-person takeover of Battersea Arts Centre, but with an incredible on-demand show too. Catering for all types of audiences and their needs, Sleeping Beauty and the Beast (at the theatre) and Puss in Moon Boots (in living rooms everywhere) couldn’t be more different, but they both share Sleeping Trees’ perfectly brilliant Christmas spirit. Unlikely heroes and evil villains lead to adventures like no others in their utterly unexpected and captivating mash-ups.

Oh, how life changes in 20 months. Not quite two years, not quite one and a half. In March 2020, artistic director of Jermyn Street Theatre Tom Littler teamed up with Michael Pennington to deliver Shakespeare’s swansong. That production played for six performances before closing down due to the  “unprecedented times” we’re still dealing with. It was this critic’s last show before theatres closed down and everything changed.