Cindy Marcolina - Page 2

“This book is about portraying a safe and dramatically effective staged fight using rapier and dagger,” so begins Roger Bartlett’s latest volume. From the large-scale battles in The Lord of the Rings to the intimate denouement in a production of Hamlet at your local theatre, stage combat is as essential a character as a protagonist can be. A badly choreographed sword fight can shatter even the tightest dramatic illusion. This is the chance to learn the best technique directly from a Master Teacher who’s accredited with the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat. 

The Last Five Years meets Gravity to introduce their unfortunate lovechild. Daniel steals a spacecraft and leaves Earth; his ex-girlfriend, Emily, is left behind. A trio of scientists breaks down their complicated relationship while Daniel records his days orbiting the planet. On paper, Theo Jamieson’s new musical is a thrilling original concept. The core idea and its philosophical foundations are utterly compelling, so it’s a real shame that they bear very little weight against a shallow plot and uninteresting characters. Adam Lenson (credited as co-creator too) directs with profound empathy for the human race, trying hard to bring to life our harrowing need to feel connected. The material fails him. 

Robert Icke is back in the West End with another star-studded classic in tow. After tackling Sophocles last year, he returns to Shakespeare, revisiting the Bard’s most misrepresented tragedy: Romeo and Juliet. Fourteen years after his directorial debut for Headlong with a radical rendition of the same play, Icke doesn’t have anything to prove - we already know he’s in a league of his own. Stylised with an ampersand like all the cool kids do these days, this production is slick, focused, and profoundly sincere.

Henry V of England is one of those big roles for an actor. Alfie Enoch follows in the footsteps of Laurence Olivier and Tom Hiddleston as the king who led a battalion of tired and outnumbered soldiers to victory. Excellent performances may save it, but co-artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Tamara Harvey’s take on this history play is unfortunately bland and unfocused. It’s something we’ve seen too many times before.

When John Proctor is the Villain opened on Broadway last year, it lit a fire. Kimberly Belflower’s response to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is more than play, it’s a movement. After shaking things up overseas, the piece is taking on London now (in the same venue that saw the U.K. premiere of Miller’s chef d’oeuvre seven decades ago almost to the day!) with its full creative team in tow and a brand new cast.

Politically involved art is crucial to the healthy functioning of a nation. Even when it’s of subpar quality, this type of outlet is vital. Mohammedally Hashemi’s play is most probably not ready to be staged quite yet. It means well and it has lots of big ideas, but it requires a complete overhaul for the production to match the value of its contents. Yusuf is a talented designer who’s making a name for himself. The recent acquisition of a large share of his company by a British investor is making it hard to reconcile his activism with her business acumen. Narratively, it boils down to the visionary couturier needing to choose between what he holds dear and the guarantee of a bright future.

Loeb certainly offers a list of thought-provoking provocations but doesn’t delve into anything that’s not already obvious if you’re a cynical mind. Predictably, money is the source of all evil, and what begins as a legitimate project to help heal the illnesses of the world becomes a profitable machine. Working around an ethical discourse is fun if it’s matched with a solid story, but the narrative lacks the appropriate pull to properly propel the philosophical side forward. 

Routine is Maya’s religion. She lives by her schedule, even factoring in the unforeseen circumstances that might lead her to needing more time to rest on a Saturday. She manages the accounts of a food packaging company and lives in London with her boyfriend. Maya is as normal as it gets. She is our friend, our sister, our neighbour. She might be a bit neurotic, but aren’t we all? Abi Watkinson’s play is a damning look at the cult of productivity, a commentary on societal standards, and a precise indictment against the continuous pressure faced by women to grin and bear it.

The tail end of the 90s is shaking the walls of Southwark Playhouse’s studio space. Inspired by over 30 testimonies from Donnyites, and originally shortlisted for both the 2023 Women’s Prize for Playwriting and the 2024 New Diorama Untapped Award, Children of the Night is a thumping anthem to friendship and club culture. Post-Thatcherite Britain is on the cusp of the new millennium and the first heterosexual HIV cases are about to hit Doncaster, but Lindsay isn’t concerned. She is just desperate to dance with her friend. Danielle Phillips writes a tender coming-of-age story that doubles as a love letter to her beloved hometown.

The best of Irish playwriting lands at the Barbican in an exciting project. An audience of one steps into a booth blindly for a play they don’t get to choose. Six five-minute one-act shows penned by Enda Walsh, Marina Carr, Mark O’Rowe, Joy Nesbitt, Louise O’Neill and Katie Holly are offered on rotation by one actor for one spectator in a truly unique individual experience. What happens when you remove the social element from a live performance? Does the physiology of theatre alter when you’re alone with it? How does intimacy impact the relationship with a story?

In spite of being one of the most difficult genres to stage, horror theatre is having its moment. The Woman in Black might have closed at the Fortune three years ago (almost to the day!), but the success of Paranormal Activity at the Ambassadors is proof that audiences are hungry for some spooky drama. The crowds demand, Thickskin Theatre provides. It Walks Around the House At Night is a deliciously spine-tingling triumph of stagecraft. Written by Tim Foley and directed by Neil Bettles, it’s as traditional as it is innovative.

The sudden passing of her father kick-starts a profound identity crisis in Lenore. Why didn’t her life dramatically change when he died? She remembers witnessing what the loss of a parent did to a schoolmate when she was younger, that instant transformation into a shell of who she was beforehand. She’s angry that she doesn’t feel any differently about him than she did when he was alive. Music and movement accompany the poetic exegesis of Yanina Hope’s relationship with her parents. It could be a delicate investigation of the aftermath of death; it’s well written and creative, but there isn’t much narrative pull to it. Autobiographical theatre always runs the risk of being too self-indulgent to see its shortcomings.

“What a thing to have a mother!” That’s how Anna Ziegler’s new play ends. Studies show that it takes two to five years for a blended family to become a cohesive unit, and when Jennifer marries John, his daughter Delilah refuses to cooperate. Jennifer badly wants to be in Delilah’s life. In her fifties, she’s never been married nor had any romantic liaisons before, but the young woman struggles to reconcile her devotion to her late mother with the recent addition to her world. Ziegler introduces two women who struggle with change. They’re extremely different, but, unsurprisingly, very much the same. 

f we’re speaking technically, a dramatised lecture is an educational performance that joins drama and academia in order to make the topic more entertaining to the public. In this case, Conradi offers an engaging one-man show that makes the bulky five acts of Peer Gynt accessible and smooth. He lightly ties the original piece to the universal experience of living in a modern world, but doesn’t overdo any of the self-referencing faux pas that could have been made. It’s a self-effacing vanity project of exquisite moral and artistic value.

While most people knew Chadwick Boseman for his blockbuster appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as T’Challa/Black Panther, the actor was also a playwright and director. His early career was spent treading the boards in New York, where he became a Drama League Directing Fellow at 24 years old in 2000. His most celebrated play is now premiering in the UK 21 two decades after its American debut. Written in lyrical verse with direct references to the Shakespearean structure, it brings hip-hop to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. It’s a treat to see something so modern and pertinent to our times being staged on the cloistered stage, but the piece is frantically overlong and unfocused. There’s lots to love, but it ultimately doesn’t satisfy.

Two best friends, the ghost of Katie’s brother, a secret. When Roni shows up at Charlie’s old flat, she finds Katie rummaging through his things while a party is in full swing upstairs. When Charlie died months prior, Katie disappeared from Roni’s life, leaving her without a place to stay and without her best friend. A lot has happened since then. Katie is starting her PhD, and Roni is about to kick off her own business. They both feel lost and alone. 1.17am, or until the words run out is an intoxicating, tragic new play. Zoe Hunter Gordon writes with naturalistic precision to deconstruct the aftermath of a death.

Delicious comic timing carries the humour with an effervescent pace, while the cultural aspect of the script adds a bittersweet layer to it. It’s genuinely funny, with a quick sting in the tail. Natasha Kathi-Chandra’s direction is unhurried, leaning into Khan’s deliberate restraint in building the relationship. The placid speed of the narrative development nearly tips into self-indulgence, and the two-hour-and-a-half-with-an-interval running time might be frankly unnecessary for what the plot is, but the production is endearing enough to make us neglect its downsides.

Sometimes a play is far more valuable than what the four walls of a theatre can hold. 2007: history will never be the same after the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gets a hold of a photo album from 1940s Germany. As the archivists leaf through the pages, the day-to-day routine of Nazi officers stationed in Auschwitz unfolds before their eyes.

Showbusiness is rife with affairs; it’s the reason tabloids exist. While these days paramours trade in texts and DMs, epistolary correspondence used to be the currency of illicit romances. It was the case for one George Bernard Shaw and Mrs Patrick Campbell (née Beatrice Rose Stella Tanner).

If you input “what does death smell like?” into Google, you’ll get a variety of results saying that it depends on the conditions of the body. That’s what Linda searches after she hasn’t seen her neighbour in some time. Life at Laurel House will never be the same; loneliness kills in Farah Najib’s tender play. In essence, Maggots covers the systemic failure of those in power. When the housing service finally shows up, it’s too late for the tenants in the build