Cindy Marcolina - Page 7

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.

There won’t be any big road movie for Samantha Brown. There could have been, but there won’t. Not after her brazen best friend, Kelly, died unexpectedly. As she sits on the hood of Kelly’s old faithful, she ponders her limbo: stay back and watch life pass her by with an overly protective mum and high school sweetheart by her side, or set off on the grand adventure she’d planned with Kelly. Right at the edge of adulthood, Sam revisits the past year, wishing it had been ordinary and uneventful, and makes a decision. The Mad Ones (formerly known as The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown in the 2010s) is a sweet contemporary musical with a heart of gold. Directed by Emily Susanne Lloyd and designed by Reuben Speed, Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk’s revisited coming-of-age and anti-Kerouac story is a touching mid-weight exploration of bereavement. 

This production is a treat. Einkvan (Everyman) is a play about connection, humanity, and intimacy. Written by Jon Fosse – the most performed Norwegian playwright after Ibsen and winner of the Nobel Prize in 2023 – it’s a haunting, longing journey. The search for compassion and kinship unfolds through parents who try to relate to their sons, to no avail. Blending dramatic practice with contemporary art and live footage, it’s very experimental, very European, and very peculiar. Directed by Kjersti Horn and presented in the original Norwegian with surtitles, it’s a deliciously highbrow, yet raw, experience.

Divisive and challenging, Tim Crouch is a one-in-a-century playwright. Whether you agree with his methods or not, his artistry is unmatched. He interrogates form and style, delivering live experiences rather than straight drama. An Oak Tree is still a pivotal piece for many. Now celebrating the 20th anniversary of the play, Crouch invites one unrehearsed actor to perform with him each night.

Mark O’Halloran’s Irish Times Award-winning play follows a woman’s sexual escapades over the course of a year. Protected by anonymity, she and her bed guests drop their guard alongside their clothes, demanding nothing more than each other’s body. Being shrouded in mystery allows for a profound level of connection. Nameless negotiations and eager acceptance develop inside liberated vignettes where intimacy briefly bridges the gap between strangers. Characters open up freely, detailing heartache, bereavement, and loss, reaping the benefits of not being known, but trying at the same time to be loved. Uncomplicated sex becomes the counterpart of a complicated life. With a London premiere directed by Jess Edwards with natural ease, it’s a shame Conversations After Sex suffers from severe woman-written-by-a-man syndrome.

It’s 1983 and beloved author Roald Dahl is about to release The Witches. Snobbish and short-tempered, he’s currently under scrutiny for the antisemitic language he used in a book review that spoke against Israel’s murderous invasion of Lebanon. Collected in his childhood kitchen are Dahl, his wife-to-be Felicity, and his publisher Tom Maschler. They’re waiting for a sales executive sent by Dahl’s American publisher in order to compel him to retract and apologise. His piece didn’t go down well in the States and his numbers are now at stake. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, Mark Rosenblatt’s playwriting debut has rinsed most of the awards found in British theatre at this point. The playwright has received two nods at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards last month as well as an Olivier, while John Lithgow and Directed by Nicholas Hytner, Mark Rosenblatt’s playwriting debut has rinsed most of the awards found in British theatre at this point. The playwright received two nods at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards last month as well as an Olivier, while John Lithgow and Elliot Levey bagged the acting categories at the latter. It deserves every ounce of praise. Giant is timely. It’s sophisticated. It’s complex. It’s nuanced. It’s everything an excellent play should be. Each side of the argument is so passionate and eloquent, yet one, though just, reeks of hatred. At a stage when Kneecap have seen their US visa revoked after speaking out against the Palestinian genocide at Coachella and JK Rowling continues to spew transphobic hate, Giant’s West End transfer is utterly momentous.

The grieving family of a prominent Shakespearean actor gathers at the location where he was due to perform before his sudden demise. The late Henry Elder, however, wasn’t willing to let anything get between him and the celebrations for his career-defining one-man show. Hamlet at the Elsinore Shakespeare Festival (a yearly event that really takes place in the Danish town of Helsingør - aka Elsinore in English) has to go on with or without him. Locked in a hotel room in the middle of the night, the Elders rehearse.

All great plays have a moral dilemma buried at the centre. Loyalty, truth, justice, et cetera. The greatest playwrights narrow down these big juicy themes and shape them into a story, making the personal universal and challenging the audience by turning their views against them – it’s a difficult balance to establish. The core of How To Fight Lonelinesshas so much potential. Neil LaBute builds this project around a collection of major arguments, hardly making his characters acknowledge the empirical decisions they face directly. People talk about nothing, saying everything, for over two hours. Assisted suicide, spirituality, lawfulness are the lining of How To Fight Loneliness. Unfortunately, the final product is a redundant show, meaty in its subject but largely exasperating and uninspiring.

Victoria Smurfit and Callum Scott Howells are the tragic mother-son duo in an exciting, tense, suspenseful adaptation. Owen shifts the script and makes this classic all about domestic abuse and the power of upper-class disdain. Rachel O’Riordan’s production is a masterclass in distilling tension and concentrating it without frills or games. It’s an emotionally challenging experience, pure theatre.

A recently bereaved young man spars with his hyper-critical dead mother and Death himself in an attempt to accept his grief and move on. One too many vignettes à la Scooby Doo chase and not enough personal reckoning have this black comedy twist and turn but never truly fulfil its potential.

Following The Audiovisual Media Services Regulation 2014, several acts were banned from explicit content filmed in the United Kingdom. This was done under the radar in a legislative change that resulted in a face-sitting protest in Westminster. The “face-sitters” protested that this bill was, in essence, sexual censorship, an interference in the private lives of an entire nation (the regulations were reviewed in 2019 after a review of obscenity laws). Naomi Westerman takes the incident and makes it the climax of her play. Jaz and Maya fall in love when Jaz joins Maya’s regular dogging group.

Sometimes you’re unlucky enough to sit in a room and wonder why plays exist. Jab is an unfortunate example of this. Anne and Don have been married for nearly three decades and they despise each other. She would normally brush his sexist remarks and complacency under the rug, mostly ignoring him during the day as a busy NHS worker, but the nation’s entering the first lockdown. Isolating together, they’re forced to look at their issues.

Azuka Oforka’s powerful debut play transports us to the Llanrumney sugar estate in Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, in 1765, where Elizabeth Morgan (Nia Roberts) lays the law as an unwed modern entrepreneur who’s facing the failure of her crops. All of a sudden, the threat to their survival exacerbates their battle of self-preservation and heart-wrenching compromise. Coming straight from a starry sell-out run at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, The Women of Llanrumney is a layered exploration of tyranny and endurance directed by Patricia Logue.