Performances run 31 July - 24 August.
A wicked blend of drama and bleak comedy reminiscent of Yorgos Lanthimos and Harold Pinter, internationally-based Capgras Theatre Company presents their debut production for the stage Strangewife - an insidious, creeping new play about the dark corners of human relationships, power, love, and identity.
What if you could build the perfect partner from scratch? Lauren is a recent widow - but at least she now has Sydney, her new companion. Under her increasingly intense direction, Sydney soon begins to resemble the persona of her late husband - but, as Lauren’s demands become more specific and disturbing over time, he finds himself disappearing into the role. Is he simply enthralled by her intensity, or is there actually more for him in this twisted arrangement than he initially realised? An eerie and comedically deadpan two-hander, starring Capgras Theatre Company members Brooklyn Boukather and Daniel Barney Newton, with the company’s Frazier Bailey as director, Strangewife follows a peculiar couple’s unsettling relationship as it transforms from a professional arrangement into something wholly unexpected and frighteningly obscure.
A play deeply punctuated with the sinking feeling that something is really not quite right, Strangewife transplants the intrigue and scare of an A24 film onto the main stage to explore the many complex faces of grief and desire. Probing the state of human interaction in a world where every aspect of our lives is under threat of commodification, Capgras Theatre Company asks us to consider: How far would you go for some semblance of love?
Strangewife will preview at Lion & Unicorn Theatre (July 21 - 23) before transferring to Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a full run in August. Capgras Theatre Company is composed of three theatre makers originally from New York, Manchester, and Cape Town, but all currently based in London. The company originated in the MA Writing programme at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
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