East End Review

Category: STAGE

Play set in ‘shipping container’ highlights plight of child refugees

Cargo: refugees attempt a border-crossing in Tess Berry-Hart’s new play

Just minutes from the ‘Refugees are Welcome Here’ sign on Dalston Lane, a mocked-up shipping container is being set up in the basement of the Arcola theatre.

This month a new play called Cargo will tell a story that reflects the plight of as many as 90,000 children who have fled to Europe from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

The play enacts a border crossing in real time, in a replica of the type of container many have already used to attempt a crossing. The play focuses on two young refugees amongst the group inside – but no one inside the container knows who they have got in there with.

Playwright Tess Berry-Hart, who also founded the charity Calais Action, said she was compelled to write the play after meeting a 12-year-old boy on her first trip to the refugee camp in France.

“The police were tear-gassing and some of the tents were being bulldozed,” she recalls. “I met this kid. He’d come across the Sahara in a truck, to Italy in a wooden boat, then travelled with smugglers to Calais.

“I was so frightened by what this meant for the world, that 12-year-old kids were travelling on their own with gangs of desperate people.”

The number of unaccompanied minors seeking refuge in Europe is not known for sure. The European Asylum Support Office said 85,482 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in 28 EU countries (plus Norway and Switzerland) in 2015, a number that is likely to have risen this year.

Berry-Hart’s background is in verbatim theatre – her latest play used interviews with gay Russian citizens to expose the extent of homophobia there. She says the toughest bit about writing this play was making something pacy and compelling without it coming across as “preachy”.

“The play’s set in a closed space and closed time,” she explains. “So trying to get everything out about the backstory of the characters, the arc of their journeys, the conflict of the play, and what happens in the container within the actual journey time – without it looking pushed or unnaturalistic – is quite a challenge.”

Although the stories in the play are fictional, they have been produced after dozens of conversations with refugees, and the cast and crew have also benefited from consultation with people who have actually experienced such crossings. The methods refugees use to get inside crates, how smugglers treat them and what happens when they get caught, were all taken from first-hand accounts.

But its thrilling plot aside, will Hackney theatre-goers choose to spend a summer evening sweating under stage lamps? One hopes, for the source material, they will.

Cargo is at Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL from 6 July – 6 August.
arcolatheatre.com

July 1, 2016
Richard III – review

Ralph Fiennes as Richard III. Photograph: Marc Brenner

It is very hard to know exactly how to perform Richard III: each way has its dangers. Making Richard the complete villain panders too much to Shakespeare the propagandist. Many of us have read Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time and believe that most of the charges against him were trumped up by the Tudors; but there is not enough in the play itself to portray a more human and considerate person, no speeches like in The Merchant of Venice that say ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’.

So how does the Almeida solve the staging problem with its superb catch of Ralph Fiennes in the starring role? Well, turn Richard into a buffoon and play it for laughs. And Fiennes does gets titters from the endless irony, slapstick and joking asides that pervade throughout. Certainly the show is lighter. But maybe he goes too far? There are even echoes of Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) from the 70s sitcom Rising Damp in the way Fiennes turns the dialogue into a series of japes.

It is not clear that this portrayal gets to the essence of the play when real darkness enfolds: the politician-turned serial killer gets to the throne but throws away all advantage in the process. Especially as the staging convincingly conveys the sinister purpose: the stark stage, the large crown overhead, the crashing and horror-inspiring chords that mark the scene changes and the sparse but piercing lighting. The supporting cast is superb, in particularVanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret, Aislín McGuckin as Elizabeth and Finbar Lynch as Buckingham.

After the interval, the show settles down as Ralph hams it less, and we see more into Richard’s tortured soul. That is how it should be played and the hope is that Fiennes will have honed his performance during the run.

Richard III
Until 6 August 2016
The Almeida Theatre
020 7359 4404

Richard III is to be live broadcast in cinemas around the world on 21 July partnership with distributor Picturehouse Entertainment.

June 21, 2016
Rosemary Branch theatre founders bow out after 20 years

Passing the baton (l-r): new artistic directors of Rosemary Branch Genevieve Taricco and Scarlett Plouviez Comnas, with founders Cecilia Darker and Cleo Sylvestre

Whether to see an uproarious pantomime or an adaptation of Jane Eyre, a trip to the Rosemary Branch has always been a byword for a good night out.

But this month the Rosie’s founders and artistic directors, Cecilia Darker and Cleo Sylvestre, have decided to call it a day after 20 years at the helm of the theatre pub.

“Someone called us an institution the other day, I quite liked that,” muses Cecilia Darker, who at 67 is looking forward to spending more time on the tennis court.

“When you run a theatre it’s so all-consuming, often 12 hour days and with certainly no distinction between week days and weekends.”

“I’ve always felt in all my careers that there comes a time that you start to plateau, and as soon as you start to plateau then it’s time to move on. And I’m just about to get to that plateau when I know that it’s time to move on.”

It was 1993 when Cecilia Darker decided to take a chance and blow her inheritance on a dilapidated pub on Shepperton Road.

The building was once a Victorian music hall, and after the squatters moved out, Darker and her business partners set about restoring the pub to its former glory.

She soon gave up her job at the Central School of Ballet and convinced her friend and neighbour Cleo Sylvestre to come on board and help run the theatre.

Sylvestre, for her part, had had a long career in theatre and screen. She had made a record with the Rolling Stones aged 17, appeared opposite Alec Guinness on the West End, and was the first black actress in a British soap, taking roles in Coronation Street and Crossroads.

“It was a veritable baptism of fire,” Darker recalls. “Together we learnt how to run a small theatre, making lots of mistakes along the way.”

Neither Darker nor Sylvestre thought they would still be at it 20 years later, but having helped launch the careers of actors, writers, directors and designers and picked up several awards along the way, the pair have decided to take pass the baton on to the next generation.

“It’s difficult to single things out in 20 years,” Darker says, when asked to name some of the highlights of her time at the Rosie.

“I was speaking to a theatre critic a couple of months ago, and he was saying ‘tell me about the Rosie and what things have hit the West End after they’ve gone to you.

“I was gobsmacked and I said it’s nothing to do with the West End what we do, it’s giving young people a chance to do something else.

“It’s a marvellous stepping stone from drama school to the next part of your career and Cleo and I are both incredibly proud of having supported so many people who have done that – those are the pleasures rather than the individual productions.”

To mark the 20-year anniversary, Sylvestre revived her one-woman show, The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole, and 20 play readings of mostly new work have been presented throughout the year, with the Rosie’s patron Fay Weldon rumoured to be writing the final one.

Is this the end of theatre at the Rosemary Branch? I am assured not. Darker still owns part of the pub, and hopes she and Cleo can help out the new resident theatre company waiting in the wings.

An experimental performance company called Unattended Items, headed up by theatre-makers Genevieve Taricco and Scarlett Plouviez Comnas will be attempting to fill their shoes.

The new directors will curate a programme of new work for an initial period of two years from this month.

Working alongside artists from a variety of disciplines, the company will seek out innovative ways of engaging audiences.

Comnas used to intern at the Rosie, so whilst the programming will certainly change, the stage is set for a smooth transition.

Rosemary Branch
2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT
rosemarybranch.com

June 16, 2016
Kenny Morgan, Arcola theatre, review: ‘a worthy tribute’

Paul Keating (Kenny) Pierro Niel-Mee (Alec) in Kenny Morgan at the Arcola Theatre. Photogaph: Idil Sukan

A young man, lying inert beside his gas stove following a botched suicide attempt, is the dismal opening sight to this play by Mike Poulton. The young man is Kenny Morgan, a one time rising star in British cinema and for a period the lover of Terence Rattigan. The past decade has seen his acting success and affair with the celebrated mid-century playwright flourish, then fall apart.

Kenny is conflicted and vulnerable, torn between two romantic recourses: Terence, played by Simon Dutton, who is passionate for Kenny but as a celebrity must keep him hidden from the public eye; and Kenny’s flatmate Alec Lennox (Pierro Niel-Mee), a bisexual fellow actor whose devil-may-care attitude exudes boyish charm and a capacity for heedless cruelty. As Kenny’s career hits the rocks, he faces the choice – to be Terence’s concubine or fall prey to Alec’s caprice. The question is can the people around Kenny (his well-meaning neighbour Dafydd Lloyd or the rationalist ex-doctor Mr Ritter) convince him that life is worth living?

Kenny’s problems are compounded by the times, for in this post-war era suicide and homosexuality were criminal acts. The play does a stellar job of conveying the social mores and emotional reticence of 1940s Britain, warts and all. We are privy to moments of prejudice, such as Alec’s grotesque impersonation of a Jew. Despite this, the play is very funny, and there is black humour, buffoonery and sly digs at the audience throughout. Marlene Sidaway in particular is a delight as the fussy, chastising landlady Mrs Simpson.

Set in Kenny’s shabby Camden flat, strong performances from the cast and a neat, uncomplicated plot make the two hours plus whiz by. The events which unfold supposedly inspired Rattigan’s greatest play, The Deep Blue Sea. However, this is not primarily about the playwright’s tryst with Kenny Morgan – it is a detailed expose on a sensitive, isolated young man’s grounds for killing himself. Mike Poulton’s play displays all the fragility, savagery and capacity for good in human nature, and is a worthy tribute to Kenny’s tragic fate.

Kenny Morgan is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL until 18 June
arcolatheatre.com

June 3, 2016
After Independence: staging the politics of Zimbabwe

Stefan Adegbola as Charles in After Independence at the Arcola. Photograph: Richard Davenport

A few years ago, playwright May Sumbwanyambe sat down to watch The Last King of Scotland with his father. The film tells the story of a white Scottish physician who finds himself embroiled in African politics after he treats the former Ugandan leader Idi Amin.

“How did we become comfortable with stories being told like that?” Sumbwanyambe recalls thinking. “No other black man in the film has any agency apart from Idi Amin.”

Sumbwanyambe’s new play After Independence opens at the Arcola Theatre this month. The play aims to shine a spotlight on the deeper complexities of power and politics in post-independence Zimbabwe.

As a playwright, it is details that interest Sumbwanyambe, what he calls “the tangled web you’re allowed to weave together in the theatre” that draw out nuance to encourage a more balanced conversation around African politics.

Sumbwanyambe’s father was himself the physician to the first president of Zambia, so stories of what it means to be black and free have always been part of the playwright’s consciousness.

And although childhood visits to family in Zimbabwe and Zambia have fuelled the material of the play, it wasn’t until the concept of independence touched his own life that Sumbwanyambe decided to write about post-colonial Africa.

Born in Scotland but raised in Yorkshire, Sumbwanyambe was not eligible to vote in the Scottish independence referendum but was nonetheless confronted with the question of identity.

“I have always ticked the box Black-British,” he says. “But now I might have to choose between Black-English or Scottish.”

It was this that led him to think about its parallel in his father’s country. Sumbwanyambe was in Zimbabwe when white farmers saw their land forcibly confiscated without compensation. This created an even more complex political scene in which corruption was rife, and generations of different classes and races sought justice.

“It’s so much more complicated than saying it’s just Mugabe,” he says of some journalism’s tendency to oversimplify.

Sumbwanyambe came to writing relatively late, having completed his undergraduate degree in law. But now he increasingly finds questions of jurisprudence creeping into his work.

“I want to look at these stories in a nuanced and balanced way,” he says. “I’m not in interested in buffoonish black dictators.”

After Independence is at Arcola Theatre, E8 3DL until 28 May

May 9, 2016
Another World, National Theatre, review: ‘reminder how powerful a tool verbatim theatre can be’

(L-R) Zara Azam (student), Farshid Rokey (student), Nabil Elouahbi (Mohamed Akunjee). Photograph: Tristram Kenton

In February last year, without a word of warning to their parents, three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green left their homes for Syria. They are just some of the estimated 800 Britons said to have joined so-called Islamic State since its conception. As fear over terrorism continues to dominate headlines, it’s a topic that’s attracted panic, frustration, and blame on all sides. What remains unclear though, is why exactly so many young Muslims are risking their lives to join the organisation.

Another World: Losing Our Children to the Islamic State does not provide a solution to this overwhelmingly complicated issue, nor does it try to. Instead, what you get is a calm, serious discussion that rises above the commotion. Encompassing a whole range of views, the documentary theatre play by Gillian Slovo and Nicholas Kent uses material taken from interviews with researchers, politicians, young people, and families of the young men and women who left to fight. Word for word, the cast retells their conversations with astounding detail and focus.

There’s nothing particularly fancy about Another World in the way of stagecraft, but that doesn’t make it any less engrossing. The Syrian conflict, radicalisation, and the government’s prevent strategy all get a look in without jargon or pretence. The way in which the performance avoids any whiff of preachiness is equally impressive.

The testimonies from the mothers of those gone to Syria are as heart breaking as you might expect; their guilt and grief run deep. While their children’s backgrounds and characters all vary, their lives are all united by a deep-rooted feeling of displacement in society – the phrase “just something missing” keeps cropping up.

But perhaps the most insightful moments of the play are the discussions with Muslim teenagers from East London, who chat freely about their bafflement over the rise of IS and their fears of prejudice in after the Paris attacks. Theirs are voices that are not heard enough over the fierce political rhetoric both here and abroad, and it’s a reminder of how powerful a tool verbatim theatre can be. Another World is an entirely sophisticated, sensitive and important work.

Another World: Losing Our Children to the Islamic State is at the National Theatre, Upper Ground, South Bank, SE1 9PX until 7 May.

May 6, 2016
Boy, Almeida, review: ‘a nightmare vision of consumerist Britain’

Frankie Fox is Liam (left with bag) in Boy at the Almeida Theatre. Photograph: Kwame Lestrade

Cut-outs of Billy Elliot, the working class boy who defies the odds to fulfil his dancing dreams dangle tauntingly above the Almeida stage during Leo Butler’s haunting new play.

Below, director-designer team Sacha Wares and Miriam Buether bring to life the mean streets of London in a way that calls foul the Billy Elliot myth of social mobility.

The stage is a slow-moving circular conveyor belt, filled at the start by the huge cast of mostly unknown actors. School children wait at the bus stop, a man talks loudly on his phone, and random snatches of dialogue overlap to give a sense of the urban melee.

As actors hop off the conveyor belt to reappear later on as different characters, one face in the crowd remains. Liam (newcomer Frankie Fox) is 17, has dropped out of education and faces an uncertain future.

Without money, qualifications or a supportive family, Liam is ill-equipped for life in austerity-era London. “You don’t know much, Steven,” says his friend’s mother, getting his name wrong. Fox is excellent as Liam, his eyes sunken, his body language uncertain and apologetic, his speech confused.

We follow Liam for a day as he trudges through the streets of London in his grey tracksuit and plastic rucksack. On the trail of a friend, Liam’s odyssey across London is fruitless from the start. He gets in trouble for not having a ticket on the tube, and one particularly grim moment sees him down and out, eating fried chicken in the cubicle of a public toilet.

Reaching Oxford Street, giant letters spelling out the name of the sportswear chain Sports Direct fill the stage. It’s a nightmare vision of consumerist Britain, and Liam lacks the tools to cope with any of it, as he struggles to articulate his sense of alienation from mainstream society.

With a roll call of bit-part characters, Boy is a somewhat disjointed play but the production by Miriam Buether and Sacha Wares raises it to the level of brilliant drama. Their perpetually looping stage brings to life a bleak vision of London, featuring everything from Oyster barriers to self-service checkouts.

Following Alecky Blythe’s Little Revolution and Re: Home by Cressida Brown, Boy is the latest play to focus on growing levels of inequality in the capital. But what makes Boy the most disturbing of the bunch is that is it neither blames nor offers redemption.

Boy is at the Almeida Theatre, N1 1TA until 28 May.

May 6, 2016
Crossing the divide – Spitalfields to see crowdfunded adaptation of Malorie Blackman classic

The cast of Noughts and Crosses in rehearsal. Photograph: Purple Moon Drama

In 2013 the author Malorie Blackman became the UK’s first black Children’s Laureate.

A prolific reader in childhood, she said that for all the books she consumed she rarely came across a black child reflected in the pages.

This month, East London youth theatre group Purple Moon Drama is staging an adaptation of Blackman’s biggest selling title, equally eager to redress the issue of black representation.

Artistic director Cheryl Walker said she hadn’t realised how popular Noughts and Crosses was until she began working on the project.

“The response we’ve had from it has been really overwhelming. I wasn’t aware what a classic childhood text it is,” she says.

Noughts and Crosses is the first book in a bestselling series which has seen Blackman become a National Curriculum recommended author, and she was even name-checked in a Tinie Tempah number one record.

What drew Walker to the text were the young, black characters in leading roles.

Coupled with contemporary themes of terrorism, oppression, and social exclusion, Walker said she felt she could make the story important for her young cast.

“It’s not art unless you’ve got something to say”, she says, asserting that her 16 young performers are more than just actors – they want to have an impact on the communities they live in.

As an actor, Walker found credible black roles hard to find. So she set up Purple Moon two years ago with the intention of handing the reins back to performers so that they might better represent their own society.

Purple Moon offers drama programmes for young people 14-25 years old irrespective of socio-economic status.

Although Walker admits that the acting profession is unfairly dominated by those lucky enough to have been afforded the education, she says this need not be a barrier.

“It’s about empowerment” she says, “giving young people confidence, and proposing the idea that there are many options available to them – as actors or otherwise.”

Because the production is being crowd-funded online, Walker feels an even stronger imperative to represent those who are supporting the endeavour.

The company rehearses at a community centre in Shadwell, sitting cheek by jowl with a housing association.

“Crowdfunding is democracy at its best,” Walker says, “appealing to the community for support we have a duty to represent them”.

Noughts and Crosses
30 April – 1 May
Brady Arts Centre, 192–196 Hanbury Street, E1 5HU

April 20, 2016
1972: The Future of Sex begins Shoreditch Town Hall run

Generation sex – The Wardrobe Company on stage. Photograph: Jack Offord

Sex began in 1963, said Philip Larkin. But in a play at Shoreditch Town Hall it’s the seventies providing fertile ground for sexual awakening.

In 1972: The Future of Sex by The Wardrobe Ensemble three couples embark on having sex for the first time during one evening.

This is the year when Ziggy Stardust first appeared on Top of the Pops, when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was finally published unabridged, and when the notorious pornographic film Deepthroat was released.

“Our research led us to that moment because it seemed quite significant time in British public consciousness in terms of the changing of attitudes about gender and sexuality,” says the play’s director Tom Brennan.

“We were looking to make a show about sex and sexual anxiety and our discussions led us to that moment in time between the AIDS epidemic and the sexual revolution.”

In this era of glam rock and space-hoppers, Christine is steeling herself for the loss of her virginity with the nerdy lead singer of a local band, whilst other storylines involve a student who is inspired by her university professor in more ways than one, and Brian in his bedroom, exploring his sexual identity by himself.

“The storylines are kind of woven together – we’ve structured it so we have a lot of narration in the show which allows us to jump between the storylines and kind of explore them simultaneously in some cases,” Brennan explains.

The show features original music from Bristol-based songwriter Tom Crosley-Thorne, a school friend of Brennan.

“I was in a band with him and when I was first talking to him about doing this show, the next day he sent me these amazing tracks, which are perfect homages to Bowie and The Who and Chaka Khan.”

After a preview last year at Shoreditch Town Hall, Brennan and fellow members of The Wardrobe Ensemble took the play up to Edinburgh where it earned rave reviews.

Now back in Shoreditch for a longer run, the play will be aiming to humorously highlight the challenges and pitfalls of growing up as a member of the class of ’72.

“You had the first gay pride march in London and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was around,” Brennan says. “But then you had Mary Whitehouse and the National Festival of Light trying to ‘restore Christian morals’. So it was quite an interesting time.”

1972: The Future of Sex
12–23 April
Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, EC1V 9LT
shoreditchtownhall.com

April 11, 2016
Playing a blinder – All That Fall preview

All That Fall, as staged by Out of Joint

It would be fair to wonder what is to be gained from staging a radio play without any visuals at all. The audience watching Samuel Beckett’s one act 1956 piece, All That Fall at the legendary Wilton’s Music Hall sit blindfolded for the duration of the performance. But without pesky sight to distract from the pithy dialogue, Out of Joint’s production successfully strips the play down to its bare, nihilistic bones with brilliant effect.

The cast wind through the space, allowing for voices to rise unexpectedly out of the darkness, while pre-recorded broken excerpts of Schubert and the screeches of incoming trains make the gloomy soundscape even more ominous.

Set in rural Ireland, the play follows the journey of the elderly Mrs Rooney to meet her blind husband as he arrives on the 12.30 train. Consistently maudlin and self-centred, Mrs Rooney’s outlook towards the world is so morbid that you’re left feeling desperate to escape her company – if only her cynicism wasn’t quite so funny. Laughter echoed around the room as she sighed and complained through the first half of the performance. However self-indulgent Mrs Rooney’s rambling though, her pain is nonetheless real. “Love, that is all I asked… daily love like a Paris horse-butcher’s regular,” she croakily laments.

The simplicity of the plot does not mean that All That Fall is an easy play to grasp. The individual backgrounds of the characters are never fully known, the context of their conversations is never understood, and questions are left unanswered. Beckett’s usual themes of death and decay are everywhere, and the naturalistic script does not make it any less surreal than some of his other works.

Despite the occasionally shaky Irish accent, the greatest strength of the production lies in the cast’s ability to deliver the script with warmth and conviction, allowing for the play’s heavier aspects to seep through without sounding forced. In the 60 minutes during which nothing very much happens, we’re left with a lot to ponder. It seems that sometimes being kept in the dark can be a good thing after all.

All That Fall
Until 9 April
Wilton’s Music Hall
1 Graces Alley, E1 8JB
wiltons.org.uk

April 1, 2016