London theatre reviews and interviews
Video review transcript: Inter Alia at the National Theatre is the new play by Suzie Miller, who you may know from Prima Facie.
She wrote that, and this is a similar legal drama. Rosamund Pike is a judge in this instance, rather than the barrister.
And at the start of the play, she has just presided over a rape case which ended in a successful, a rare, successful prosecution. But this is not so much a legal drama, but more about a personal drama.
(more…)Video review transcript: The Lady From the Sea at the Bridge Theatre is an Ibsen play that has a modern spin on it.
Nothing against modern adaptations at all. I’ve seen some brilliant modern adaptation, adaptations of classic plays, but I don’t think this works.
Really feels like there’s a lot of elements that have been added that just don’t really enhance the central story or support the central story.
(more…)Having spent 15 years publishing Rev. Stan’s Theatre blog on Typepad, I got the news the platform was closing down.
So this is Rev. Stan’s Theatre reborn on WordPress. It’s a continuation in content terms – reviews and interviews – but with a new URL and refreshed design.
If you are new to Rev. Stan’s Theatre blog then welcome. If you visited the orginal blog – welcome back.
This blog has always been a labour of love – I don’t get paid – so every click and comment means a great deal.
Thank you for reading and enjoy.
Elena Mazzon's play The Popess: Instructions for Freedom is based on a piece of obscure medieval Italian religious history, uncovered through the use of tarot cards.
The Popess of the title, Maifreda Pirovano, inspired the High Priestess card (read my interview with Elena for more on the discovery) and was appointed by Guglielma of Bohemia, who preached a feminised version of Christianity.
We discover this story in the play through an Everywoman living in 13th-century Italy, who has become disillusioned with the patriarchal Catholic church.
She joins a friend who is exploring different religious groups. The friend is more interested in finding good-looking boys, but for Everywoman, it is a spiritual search for truth and freedom.
It is a fun and eye-opening endeavour laced with danger as the Inquisition is also on the hunt for these 'heretical' groups.
Part religious service (there is audience participation), part history lesson, part feminist story, it is a lively and fun play with serious undertones.
It explores the hypocrisy of the male-dominated Catholic church, the role of women in society and the possibilities if there were equality and freedom.
Elena Mazzon is an engaging storyteller and performer, cycling through the different characters the girls encounter in their search for boys/religious truth.
Actor and writer Elena Mazzon talks about the obscure history that inspired her new play, compares acting and writing and shares what she likes to watch at the theatre.
Elena Mazzon: Accidentally, although I don’t believe in accidents. I was bored during lockdown, and I was trying to make sense of the major arcana and minor arcana – I do tarot readings with friends.
I was very interested in the archetypes and flicking through the booklet for the Rider-Waite [Tarot], and when I got to the second card, which is the High Priestess, the story was unbelievable. I didn’t know anything about it.
This woman from Milan, called Maifreda Visconti, a relative of a very powerful family at that time in the 1300s, was the inspiration for this card, for the Visconti tarot deck, which was made a century and a half later.
I’m from Italy and I’ve never heard of it, none of my friends knew about it and I was like, ‘how come’?
And I started delving into it and researching, and I thought it was fascinating. And it felt like the veil of the High Priestess was just the veil of knowledge had been lifted, and I had to put it out there for other people to know about it.
EM: That was a bit tricky initially, because I didn’t know how to put it all together. Everything that I wrote and the research, which is really minimal – there’s not much you can find.
But then I worked with Colin Watkeys, the deviser and director of the show. We worked together on another show before, and he specialises in solo shows and is fantastic.
He can help you take everything out of your hat very easily. And he uses cards as well. Sometimes it’s the structure of the tarot card. Sometimes just cards to talk about the characters and give them qualities and levels of qualities, low and high.
Working with him is very smooth and liberating. So it was actually a really, really nice process.
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Akimbo Theatre's The Animator tells the fascinating story of German Lotte Reiniger (Lexie Baker), who, 10 years before Disney, created a feature-length animated film.
Lotte's film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, is a fairy tale made using silhouettes and an innovative new style of camera. In 1920s Berlin, this genre strangely reflects the bohemian, free-thinking, liberal mindset of Lotte and the eccentric men who helped her.
And it is in stark contrast to what is going on around her. Germany is a country recovering from a war it lost, and another is brewing.
Fascism is rising, and the challenges Lotte faces are many, from the technicalities of making the film to finding an investor willing to take the risk and navigating the censors.
Her vision is big, bold, loose and free in a political landscape that is narrowing and becoming increasingly oppressive.
Akimbo Theatre's approach to storytelling is dynamic and high-energy, packed full of movement, dance and music, and The Animator is no different. It is bold and vivacious with the added layer of film and animation clips projected onto a large, white screen backdrop.
The story is framed by an aged Lotte (Lexie Baker) recalling the time, accompanied by footage of the real Lotte talking, a reminder of the fact amid the fiction.
Akimbo's is a performance style that suits the characters working in the animation studio, the eccentricities imaginatively captured in the movement and humour. Lexie Baker gives a compelling performance as Lotte.
Ambika P3 is an appropriate space for Caryl Churchill's strange, disturbing metaphorical play Far Away. It's located underneath the University of Westminster, accessed through loading doors, a large concrete and steel industrial space with a mezzanine floor and rooms with lower ceilings that lead off from the main space.
It's mostly sparse except for three main pockets of set, which you are led to by the cast, usually with a particular whistle, or the blank-faced ushers gesturing.
There is a farmland/open space area marked by wooden electric pylons. A domestic setting with a dining table, chairs, and a hat factory.
Far Away is a promenade theatre with a few chairs around two of the main sets, but not enough for everyone to sit. Is that on purpose, to divide, force decisions and judgment?
An eerie soundscape, sometimes industrial sounds, sometimes nature sounds, adds to the atmosphere. It feels unsettling and isolated, like the play.
There are three main acts with some interludes – a sequence of mime/movement, for example.
In the first act, a young girl can't sleep after seeing something outside. The second two workers discuss their working conditions as they race to create elaborate hats in an ever-shortening amount of time. And the third, a kitchen table discussion of the state of a world in conflict.
Clive is Thomas's cactus. Thomas, played by Paul Keating, talks to Clive and even has a 'Mexico' lighting and ambience setting to make him 'feel at home'. He simply says 'Mexico' to Alexa, and hey presto.
Thomas works in IT but is now based at home. He lives alone and has OCD, which manifests in his obsession with neatness and cleanliness.
I work from home and live alone, and my cactus is called KC, short for Kitchen Cactus. And yes, I do talk to KC. Occasionally. I don't have OCD, but there are other parallels with Thomas's set-up.
At the start of the play, Thomas is happy in his job. He is needed, has a purpose and routine. Until a company restructure and things turn toxic. I've been there.
The behaviour of certain colleagues causes him to question and doubt everything, and working alone at home means there is no one to share his concerns with.
I spent many an hour toe-tapping and sometimes jumping up and down at guitar-heavy gigs at the Brixton Academy in my younger years, but I didn't know anything about how the venue came to be an icon of live music.
Brixton Calling at the Southwark Playhouse is that story, or rather the story of Simon Parkes, who, as a music-obsessed 23-year-old, persuaded the owners of a crumbling former cinema in south London to sell it to him for £1, so he could turn it into a gig venue.
The play, written by Alex Urwin, is based on Simon Parkes' memoir: Live At The Brixton Academy. It is a rollercoaster ride accompanied by live music.
This was the 1980s: Riots, IRA threats, racism and gangs looking to expand their protection rackets. The cinema was already a failed music venue and was crumbling away as a storage space for furniture.
When Simon (Max Runham) walks into the building for the first time, the moment is beautifully – and cheekily – captured, accompanied by a snippet of the song 'I Only Have Eyes for You' performed by Tendai Sitima.
Video transcript: The Estate at the National Theatre sees Adeel Akhtar play a politician who’s bidding to become the leader of the opposition.
But it’s not just a political drama. It’s a family drama because there’s stuff going on in his background that threatens to derail his attempt.
And it’s very meaty play, because the family drama throws up misogyny, differences in culture, immigration – there’s a lot going on.
But what I really liked about this play, which is really well written, is that the characters are really well drawn: There’s no hero or villain.
You can see both sides of the argument, and it makes for a really interesting, really thought-provoking play.
It’s also funny in places. It sounds really heavy, but there is humour in it too. I really liked it. I am giving it four stars.
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