Cindy Marcolina - Page 3

At a time when people are arrested by the hundreds for peacefully protesting the ongoing genocide, Swag Age resonates across nations and languages. Written by Park Chan-Min and Min Jeong-Yeon with direction by Lee Kyung-soo, it’s a riotous, roaring, exciting new piece of musical theatre. It challenges the elite and denounces corruption, calling out those who are complicit in silencing the masses. 

“Does my flesh dazzle you?” a lascivious Christopher Marlowe asks a flustered William Shakespeare in what we can only describe as an exceptional example of theatrical slash fiction. For the uninitiated, “slash fiction” is a genre of fanfiction that focuses on the romantic relation between preexisting fictional characters of the same sex. Liz Duffy Adams’s Born With Teeth brings the female gaze to the West End. Directed by Daniel Evans and starring Ncuti Gatwa alongside Edward Bluemel, 90 steamy minutes of action puts two most venerated playwrights in England together like we’ve only ever found on websites like AO3 (Archive Of Our Own, the biggest fan-run fanfiction platform) and Tumblr.

Worlds clash once again in Mike Bartlett’s universe. Lip and Ruth’s pull to return to nature is disrupted when Ruth’s stepdaughter, Millie, and her academically inclined best friend, Femi, visit the couple’s earthy homestead. This rural idyll, where the sky is enormous and the trees tell a story of their own, is suddenly disturbed by brutal talks of capitalist wars and nihilism while the economics of permaculture are discussed. What happens when ecological extremism starts to look like a sensible decision? Should we put our planet before our family? Generations lock horns, blame becomes currency, and the land watches on in three big scenes divided by two intervals. It’s all very Mike Bartlett-y.

We meet Jamie and Ruby as they’re planning their wedding playlist. What follows is a collection of vignettes that lead up to the big day. Playwright Will Jackson drafts a flawed piece for the 18-25 Bush Young Company. Directed by Katie Greenall, it could be the personal exploration of a society that continuously forces us into our assigned roles, but it comes off as if the writing is simply ticking off a list of pertinent sociopolitical issues. Featuring anxiety, anti-genocide activism, eldest daughter syndrome, the housing crisis, suicide, and more, it’s a lot. Combine that with a cast of 17 young actors who all need to do something, and most productions would be in danger of becoming messy. 

We are delighted to report that real fringe theatre is back. The invigorating, daring, challenging, form-subverting kind of venture that makes the stage its playground. We haven’t encountered anything like this since before Covid. There isn’t a lot of theatre with specifically scientific research as its core, either. Commercially, The Effect (Lucy Prebble’s play about a clinical trial) had a revival in 2023 with Jamie Lloyd at the helm and Caryl Churchill’s evergreen reflection on human-cloning, A Number, was on just the year before (curiously, both starred Paapa Essiedu). Looking away from the West End, it’s even harder to find something that sits firmly at the junction with science. Three Billion Letters swoops in at the rescue and begs you to think. Created by TAKDAJA, the piece is a heady mix of data and experimentalism. Does our DNA control more than our eye colour and predisposition to illness? How do we determine our identity? There’s so much gene-ius in it. 

Two joints, both alike in dignity: Monty’s Tacos and Caps Bar. The high street isn’t big enough for the rival families. Shakespeare’s tale of young love and civil bloodshed comes alive in a gripping community-oriented rendition at Stratford East. Adapted by Kwame Owusu and co-directed by Emily Ling Williams and Malik Nashad Sharpe (who also choreographed it), it sees a staggering 38-strong cast of professional performers alongside young artists from the venue’s own training program and representatives of the public. The result is a fresh, energetic, galvanising production infused with music and dance that digs into the more romantic side of the play to deliver an excessively naive interpretation. It’s a springboard for many members of the acting company, but the vision lacks stability.

What did our critic think of SING STREET at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre?

The recent statistics surrounding alcohol consumption in the UK are frankly staggering. Across the four nations, around 80% of adults are regular drinkers, and a significant number of them drink way above the Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk guidelines. The country’s drinking culture is out of hand and few of us pay it much mind. Shows like The White Chip burst onto the scene in a blaze of counter-action, reframing a problem that is standard behaviour for many. After all, how can you let loose without sipping on something? 

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that bisexuals are often underserved when it comes to theatre and media. Poltergeist thriller Ivories valiantly sweeps in at the close of Pride Month, but it over-promises and under-delivers. Beyond the messy and exceedingly protracted set-up, lies a great story that will delight all queer fans of the genre. After all, an eerie old house, a dying grandmother, and a bunch of secrets bound for the grave are the bones of any good spooky summer horror.

Sarah Kane is part of the mythology of British theatre. A brilliant mind, unbridled in her explorations of existence. Severely depressed, she hanged herself in the toilets of King’s College Hospital on the 20th of February, 1999. Tragically, it wasn’t a surprise. She wrote and talked about suicide very matter-of-factly. Kane authored, in total, five plays and a short film, all of equal, tragic precision in their emotional quality. It’s astonishing how much beauty came from someone who suffered so intensely.

Days are getting longer, nights are warmer, and we have a brand new musical romantic comedy premiering in East London. Written by the creators of the phenomenon that was the podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno, Jamie Morton and James Cooper, with music by Bryn Christopher and Martin Batchelar, Lovestuck is a relatable, cute musical guide for modern dating with only one flaw. Why did Lucy end up stuck upside down in a window after her date with Peter? The answer is more complicated than you might think.

“We’ll do the raffle in about half an hour, but first we’ll play a few songs if that’s alright?” One foot on stage and the mood is set. What would ensue is over two hours and a half of spitfire banter and fire tunes. It’s rare for performers to be found anywhere on nights when their theatres are dark, but Fraser took over Cadogan Hall for a rare solo concert whilst off from his West End run of The Deep Blue Sea. It was the “delayed launch gig” that he teased when we spoke to him in February. Self-effacing from the get-go, he went on to sing prime choices from all three studio recordings of his, noticing leitmotifs in the themes and delighting the audience with surprise guests.

It was only February when we headed to Stratford-upon-Avon to review Hamlet, so it comes as quite the surprise to head through green fields speckled with sheep for the same play a mere four months later. Elsinore might have been a massive moving ship back then, but it’s receiving an astonishing overhaul this time.

Miss Myrtle’s garden is an oasis caught in the jaws of gentrification. As her mind starts to go, her grandson Rudy moves in with his “friend” and prods her for answers about their shared past. The generational gap is an abyss of doubt, but is that what’s making it hard for her grandson to be open about his life? Danny James King writes a sophisticated exploration of memory, grief, and identity, which, directed by Taio Lawson (the Bush Theatre’s incoming Artistic Director), becomes a touching, beautiful piece of theatre. King surrounds the stigma of dementia with lots of breathing space rooted in the unsaid, sweetening uncomfortable truths with surprising circumstantial humour. A finely tuned balance is set up: though frankly hilarious at times, the show bottles up that unbearable wave of sadness you get when you see an old person sitting by themselves.

Based on Sarah Ruhl’s eponymous 2018, the stage adaptation of Letters from Max is downright harrowing. It follows her correspondence with a brilliant former student of hers, Max Ritvo, whose sudden cancer recurrence in his early 20s echoes in Ruhl’s life. As the pair discuss illness and artistry, the real power of the poet comes into focus.

Back in 2023, the Royal Shakespeare Company celebrated the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio with a national playwriting competition. From over 2000 entries, 37, spanning all genres, were picked. Readings for the winning plays were held through the autumn of that year and subsequent productions have been popping up here and there ever since. Nancy Netherwood’s Radiant Boy now landing at Southwark Playhouse directed by Júlia Levai. The writer’s professional debut takes us back to the 80s in North-East of England, where it is believed that a young man is possessed. Back home from studying at King’s College Choir in London, he and his mother keep their friction at bay while they wait for Father Miller to arrive. Can they redeem Russell’s spiritual health? And what is it that’s haunting him exactly?

Dying crops, a community in distress, scandals, affairs, Shucked was hailed as the pinnacle of musical comedy when it premiered in 2022. With a book by Robert Horn (writer of Tootsie and the stage adaptation of Disney’s Hercules, to mention a few credits), plus music and lyrics by country songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, Jack O’Brien’s production lands in Regent’s Park for its UK premiere after a handful of wins and a Grammy nod too. The show might be an easy giggle, ready to charm with puns galore and a corny score, but it's shuckingly mid. Every inch is tropey and formulaic, with quips that are either the low-hanging cob or the most extravagant sexual innuendo, missing the sophistication of well-calibred humour altogether. It has plenty of moments of brilliance and the company is overwhelmingly excellent, but the material isn’t as dazzling.

Plays like The Fifth Step don't come around often. Those whose layered philosophical exoskeleton props up their own dramatic contradictions in quietly superb theatre. At its core, though less pure black comedy and more complex introspective drama coated in dark irony than what you’d expect from David Ireland, it has that delicious push-and-pull that only Ireland can write. It’s a potluck of themes. Alcoholism, recovery, resentment, masculinity, spirituality, family, class, what-have-you populate a play that’s as tense as it is caustic.

Laith’s parents have survived unimaginable atrocities in order to save themselves and give him a better chance, yet he struggles. This exploration of the personal consequences of the Arab diaspora cracks open the constant compromising of immigrant children. Emily Ling Williams directs Tommy Sim’aan in Laith Elzubaidi’s tender, amusing, and thoroughly thought-provoking award-winning solo play. It’s a funny, politically charged tearjerker.

Sam is a football-loving, tomboyish young woman with a lifetime of fun ahead of her. That’s until a violent accident on the pitch puts an end to the carefree part of her youth. All of a sudden, she is ruled by a mercurial new enemy, Annie the aneurysm, who threatens to burst at all times. Gone are the days of taking footballs square in the face. Faced with the choice of getting a risky surgery or leaving Annie to her own devices, Sam Ipema ponders the moments that change the trajectory of your story in a remarkable multimedia production directed by James Meteyard.