Cindy Marcolina - Page 8

There are some things we don’t see enough in theatre. A few of these are: stories about women who love women and roles for older female-identifying actors. When these two come together, beauty often happens. Es & Flo is exactly this. Written by Jennifer Lunn, it follows Es’ condition as it threatens the life she’s built with Flo. It’s a stark reminder of the legacy of senior members of the LGBTQ+ community, a testimony of the survivors who fought for those rights that are still under threat today. It’s a harrowing celebration of lesbian romance.

Written almost a century ago and premiering in London for the first time, Yours Unfaithfully has the acquired taste of a fine vintage wine. The piece is typically English with typically un-English values.

Once upon a time, in the heart of the West End, a small secret room where you could hear the people sing hid underneath a staircase. Singing waiters and belting bartenders serenade patrons at SingEasy, located somewhere inside The Piano Works.

It’s an eclectic, tragically funny show. Interviews with lesbians intertwine with Kit’s own experience, gliding through verbatim and poetry to paint a picture of sapphic innocence and quiet subversion. Charismatic and quick-witted, she explores the concepts that make up queerness, betraying a certain sadness too.

Conducted by Anthony Parnther (isn’t that the perfect name to lead this specific venture?), this European premiere features Massamba Diop on the talking drum, an instrument essential to the score. Diop, who performed the original tracks for director Ryan Coogler, is a force of nature. After a beautiful introduction by Parnther (who surprisingly does a cracking impression of James Earl Jones as Mufasa!), Diop gave a taster for what was to come: a vibrant tattoo that goes hand in hand with masterful storytelling, filling the Hall effortlessly.

All in all, the evening is like a group session with no guarantees of being called out or receiving answers. Believers will believe, sceptics won’t. Without going into Michael’s “gift”, the two hours are, unfortunately, rather dull. He jumps straight in between tongue-in-cheek jokes and an entertainer’s spirit. A tense silence falls onto the audience and he starts pacing around, trying to “pick up” some “energy”. He is respectful, and kind, almost apologetic for his intrusions into people’s personal lives as he glances into nothingness, pulling information out of thin air.

Kent’s direction is interesting but leans into melodrama, with Ball offering some glitzy big-name introspection and the plot itself overflowing into sexual ambiguity and implied promiscuity. Aspects of Love is, essentially, an indefensibly problematic musical soap opera that looks exquisite but didn’t need to be revived.

The Big O navigates Lucy’s self-loathing and PTSD in an inspirational journey, but, while the topic is loudly and proudly urgent, the play falls short on many levels. This said, it’s most definitely not a lost cause. Even though it’s all over the place at this stage, Kim Cormack’s exploration of female intimacy and the performative side of sex is an intriguing, necessary subject.

Playwright Lisa Carroll explores how the contemporary search for intimacy is marred by millennial malaise and trauma cycles in a witty dramedy that’s unexplainably ideologically ambiguous.

Director Max Harrison takes the play and makes it a contemporary exploration of unaddressed trauma, gaslighting, and complicated family relations with performances that scrape excellence once they settle into themselves.

The performance ambles between overly physical and shackled by stillness. Hunter delivers the difference in characters through caricatural vocal modulations, which redundancy adds Venus’s excessive flamboyancy in an annoying chain of vapid banality. We come out of it with very little. He is a visibly passionate performer, but his trepidation doesn’t truly transfer to the audience. It almost makes us want to ask what exactly is going on. What’s with the sudden makeup? Why is he dressed like a businessman with plimsolls? Why is he telling us all this? “So quick bright things come to confusion.”

Operation Mincemeat is a victory for the underdog, in themes as well as in reality. Relatable characters with vibrant backgrounds, regardless of their size, go on a Frankensteinian journey to divert the Nazi battalion to Sardinia. From songs about wanting to be a maggot to heart-wrenching glimpses into tragic love stories, it’s as eclectic as it is entertaining. Rhythmic pop music, a contemporary musical theatre sound, the odd rap segue, and a tune that would feel at home at Berghain for good measure (“Das Übermensch”) are the foundation of this life-affirming, riotous history lesson.

The launch of ChatGPT has been received with general apprehension, if not frantic worry, by writers worldwide. If you can train Artificial Intelligence to deliver copy as profound, correct, and well-written as it’s humanly possible, does it mean that writing is soon to be an obsolete profession?

Far from being the meaty two-hours-45-cum-interval, it chases its own tail in an exhausting, exasperating, overlong, and overblown production directed by Emma Jude Harris. It’s genuinely difficult to see the point of the play.

Supernova doesn't feel like a debut play. Neads not only writes with emotional intelligence and psychological tact, she also has a knack for crafting realistic, magnetic dialogue. She draws the audience in, making them care irreparably for her characters. “In the scheme of things, I don't remotely matter” Tess says. But she does, and so does this play.

Jules and Jim is Stella Powell-Jones’s first production since taking over the artistic direction of Jermyn Street Theatre, and it certainly sets the mood for what could be.

Jon Bradfield (script) and Josh Hepple (original story alongside Bradfield) pen a relatable tale of love and lust in the digital age, putting disability centre-stage in all its complicated frustrations. They don’t shy away from bleak comedy and pitch-black wit, presenting an excellent piece of socially engaged theatre that educates and entertains in equal measure directed by Bronagh Lagan. 

Samson Hawkins’s play is great fun, but it’s a complex one. This good-hearted comedy cum moral whose identity is defined by precise British sit-com humour (with all the good and bad that comes with it) is threatened by a sense of inauthentic working class ideals. However, if we give in and welcome the satiric idyll of South Northamptonshire, we’ll find a collection of peculiar characters who keep edging and retreating from political incorrectness written with idiosyncratic flair.

Swindle drives a practical narrative that avoids storytelling in order to preserve the naked truth and honour those who lost their lives with such brutality. But this is, ultimately, entertainment and we’re not sitting in a lecture hall. The lack of sordid details is refreshing, but the production would perhaps benefit from a more personal take instead of only bare fact.

Directed by Michael Cottrell, it’s a rabid episode of Black Mirror wannabe. It’s #MeToo on steroids afflicted by a dearth of analytical depth. The script stalls too much, avoiding any critical exploration of the issues it’s supposedly about.