physical theatre
How to be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons, Teaċ Daṁsa review - a riveting account of a life in dance
Jenny Gilbert
Anyone who has followed the trajectory of choreographer-director Michael Keegan-Dolan and his West Kerry-based company Teaċ Daṁsa (House of Dance) will know by now to expect the unexpected. Such as a Swan Lake whose storyline, in part a searing attack on the abuses of the Catholic church, bore so little resemblance to the original that you might think you’d come to the wrong theatre until the spectacular finale seen through a blizzard of white feathers.His staging of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (a co-production with English National Opera) is up there with the finest, pitting Irish hare Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The Ukraine war is not the only place of horror in the world, but it does present a challenge to theatre makers who want to respond to events that dominate the news. And which make us all feel powerless, including our leaders. Instead of staging a play such as Bad Roads, Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s savage 2017 account of the conflict, the Royal Court has chosen a meta-theatrical and metaphorical response. Adapted from the 2019 book of poems by Ukrainian-American author Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic is a contemporary fable of war, atrocity and resistance. A collaboration Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Can experimental theatre survive the decades? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Forced Entertainment theatre company, whose mission is summarised (by themselves) as “tearing up the rulebook”.It is also the 50th anniversary of this venue, which began life as the Battersea Arts Centre all those years ago, and now proclaims itself as “a Home for the Extraordinary”. It is also one of the London hosts for the Sheffield-based company’s visit to the capital with some six shows and other events. One of these is L’Addition. But is the hype around the celebration of anniversaries justified by Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is a novella whose cultural resonance has echoed loudly down the years. As a modernist metaphor for alienation in our times it has frequently been adapted for the stage. There have been classic, and popular, adaptations by Steven Berkoff and by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson for Vesturport theatre company.This latest version, by national treasure Lemn Sissay, comes to the Lyric Hammersmith after opening its national tour at the Curve, Leicester, last September. It is produced by Frantic Assembly, whose work specialises in a mixture of exciting dance moves, Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Waiting in the National Theatre’s foyer on press night, a space teeming with people speaking different languages, boasting different heritages – London in other words – news came through that leading members of the government had resigned because the proposed Rwanda bill was not harsh enough. Looking across the Thames, one could not help but imagine what this city would have looked like without its immigrants, its trade, its wealth, the skyscrapers, streets and opportunities they represent built on that 1000 year old continuing story. Thinking of my own Anglo-Swedish sons, for neither the Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Brighton Festival has a knack for choosing children’s theatre that is in equal measure as magical and captivating as it is simple and easy to understand. It’s an equation that means both adults and children alike can be sure to have an experience that promotes creative imagination, stimulating conversation and calm reflection.Dan Colley’s retelling of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s tale A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings consists of two storytellers, a kitchen table and a cast of tiny figurines in front of a cardboard set. The pair inform us that “we tell the story because we like it” and issue a Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
You never forget your first Gecko production. I experienced mine almost 20 years ago at the Battersea Arts Centre, when the company performed Tailors’ Dummies, its ingenious surreal show about obsession. This had all the hallmarks that would make Gecko one of our most distinctive physical theatre companies; gravity-defying choreography, a quasi-acrobatic exploration of concepts of the body, and scenes that were as elliptical as they were absurd.From here they went on to create works including The Arab and the Jew, The Overcoat and Missing, enthralling audiences with their bold sculpting of Read more ...
Gary Naylor
When Rhum + Clay conceived this show, the idea of a comic becoming a political leader might have prompted thoughts of Boris Johnson's carefully cultivated buffoonery on "Have I Got News For You" and elsewhere. Since then, a certain Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given politician-comedians a rather better name. Comedy, as is so often the case, is in thrall to timing.Such thoughts may be inevitable as Matt Wells' attempts to create a show detailing his philosophy of political leadership are repeatedly subverted by his stage assistant, Julian Spooner, who wants politics to be "fun" (main picture Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
“If you want romance,” the cast of Emma Rice’s new version of Wuthering Heights say in unison just after the interval, “go to Cornwall.” They’re using the modern definition of romance, of course – Emily Brontë’s novel is full of the original meaning of "romantic", much wilder and more dangerous than anything Ross Poldark gets up to.Rice’s anarchic adaptation preserves that feral quality, with the Moor itself telling the doomed love story of Cathy (Lucy McCormick) and Heathcliff (Ash Hunter), but doesn’t do enough to keep up its energy.The opening is more Kafkaesque than Brontësque (though Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
This show has been a long time coming. Neil Gaiman had the first inklings of The Ocean at the End of the Lane when he was seven years old and living near a farm recorded in the Domesday Book. Several decades later, he wrote a short story for his wife, Amanda Palmer, “to tell her where I lived and who I was as a boy”, as he puts it in his programme notes.That short story was developed into an award-winning novel; Joel Horwood’s adaptation opened at the Dorfman Theatre in late 2019, and was meant to transfer to the West End in early 2020. Now it’s back, and the spellbinding beauty of Katy Rudd’ Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
One of Marc Chagall’s last commissions was for a stained-glass window in Chichester Cathedral, which channelled his characteristically exuberant spirituality into a response to the verse from Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord”. One of my earliest cultural memories is going as a schoolgirl to attend the window’s unveiling and seeing for the first time the clashing colours and fusing of folk and experimental art that made him one of the twentieth century’s most distinctive artists.Emma Rice’s ravishing, colour-saturated production of The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk takes Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
Missing the office? Or dreading the day you have to return? What’s your relationship to the people you work with and for, and how does it intersect with your personal life? Do your paymasters know you? Do they care about you? Are there days when the routine and the hierarchy of it all just feels like a spirit-crushing game?All of those notions, and many others, drifted through the imagination when you entered the unsettling world of the Institute. This hour-long film for the BBC was created and directed by Amit Lahav, founder of the much-admired physical theatre company Gecko, and adapted Read more ...