East End Review

Tag: Arcola

  • Grimeborn returns for tenth anniversary at the Arcola

    Grimeborn returns for tenth anniversary at the Arcola

    Bluebeard's Castle
    Béla Bartók’s entrancing masterpiece, Bluebeard’s Castle. Photograph: Brent Eviston

    Flying in the face of opera’s reputation for being overpriced, elitist, and long-winded, the Arcola Theatre has launched its tenth-anniversary Grimeborn festival.

    The festival offers new works and reinvigorated classics in both theatrical and outdoor spaces around Hackney.

    This year’s event, a rather grittier alternative to the prohibitively expensive Glyndebourne, is presenting sixteen new pieces of music theatre from the sublime to the psychopathic.

    The festival opened with a production of Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, translated from Bela Balasz’ original Hungarian text, and performed in one-act. Daunted? Don’t be.

    Following its huge success at the Olympic Park last year, this contemporary production was performed for free, outdoors, at none other than Gillett Square, where a cast of community performers manipulated huge, over-sized puppets through this dark tale of blood, tears and unruly husbands.

    The setting for opening night was an impressive statement of intent for the seven weeks of festival to come, where almost every ticket is £15 or less and many of the shows come in under the hour mark.

    That’s not to say that the rich majesty of some of opera’s more heavyweight material is not represented at Grimeborn 2016.

    With Puccini’s classic Tosca, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, there is plenty to enjoy from the canon, revitalised for a contemporary audience.

    The Hive is a work-in-progress showing of a new piece about psychopathic behaviour and the people who seek it out. The production is directed by Bill Bankes-Jones, who runs the Tête-à-Tête contemporary opera festival.

    For anybody who saw the award-winning show Wot? No Fish!!, the closing event of the festival will be one to look out for.

    In his most successful work, Danny Braverman recounted the heart-warming story of a shoebox full of his great uncle’s wage packets adorned with sketches designed to entertain his wife.

    Braverman has now penned a musical for Grimeborn based on the songs of Labi Siffre. Something Inside So Strong opens in the first week of September.

    There are specially-priced tickets for those 16 and under, suggesting most productions are suitable for young adults. It’s also worth noting that many of the shows run for only a night or two so best to book early.

    Grimeborn
    Till 10 September 2016
    Arcola Theatre
    24 Ashwin Street
    Dalston
    E8 3DL

     

  • After Independence: staging the politics of Zimbabwe

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

  • Cancellation of witchcraft play is ‘akin to censorship’

    Photograph: Richard Davenport
    Hannah Hutch stars in Jane Wenham: The Witch of Wenham. Photograph: Richard Davenport

    The decision to cancel a performance of a play co-produced by the Arcola has been described as “akin to censorship”.

    Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern was due to be performed at Ipswich High School for Girls on 13 October before it emerged the performance had been cancelled due to concerns about its content.

    The play, which is touring small venues outside London before a run at the Arcola in January, looks at accusations of witchcraft in 18th-century Hertfordshire from a feminist perspective.

    Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the co-writer of Oscar-winning film Ida, the play looks at what happens after a woman is blamed for a tragic death and charged with witchcraft.

    A statement by Out of Joint explained it had made the story of the cancellation public because “decisions akin to censorship should not be made easily or without consequence, and should be known about”.

    Max Stafford-Clark, Out of Joint’s Artistic Director said: “It is deeply troubling that a play which so eloquently examines witch persecutions from a feminist perspective, and looks at the way society treated and continues to treat women, is considered inappropriate for an audience of young women.

    “The school has also said that the inclusion of swearing is inappropriate, a policy which presumably rules out much contemporary drama or fiction for study. There is nothing gratuitous in the play. Theatre is the way we examine our world and our history. The school’s decision not to learn from the past seems spectacularly perverse.”

    But a spokesperson for the independent girls’ school defended the decision, saying that it had been prompted by a change of personnel at the school.

    “The new teachers in the drama department reviewed the script on their arrival at the school this September, and had grave reservations about the content and inferences,” the spokesperson said.

    “The concern about the use of swear words was secondary to the references made to child abuse which are explicitly detailed.

    “Teachers have a legal duty of care which includes being aware of the content of their work and the impact it may have on children, young people or vulnerable adults.”

    The axing of the play follows the furore surrounding Homegrown, the National Youth Theatre play about Islamic radicalisation that was pulled two weeks before it opened.

    Jane Wenham: The Witch of Walkern is co-produced by the Arcola Theatre, Out of Joint and Watford Palace Theatre, in association with Eastern Angles.

     

  • Sex Workers Opera: raising marginalised voices and challenging sterotypes

    Sex Workers Opera.
    Accusing: the cast of the Sex Workers Opera

    Sex work and opera may seem unlikely bedfellows, but one thing both have in common is strong public preconceptions.

    The desire to challenge stereotypical thinking and stigma has brought the two together in the Sex Workers Opera, which comes to Dalston’s Arcola Theatre this month.

    The show lets prostitutes, escorts, webcam performers, strippers and other sex workers tell their stories on stage through performance and music, foregrounding personal experiences good and bad.

    “Everyone has an opinion on sex work,” explains Siobhan Knox, co-director of the show and co-founder of Experimental Experience theatre company. ”But when it comes down to it, the only people who really have the right to talk about it are sex workers themselves.”

    “Very rarely is sex work represented in art through the words of the people actually doing it,” adds Alex Etchart, also co-director and co-founder.

    “We put a call out for stories we could use in the opera, and received them from all over the world. We want to represent the diversity of sex workers on their own terms.”

    As such, the less obvious aspects of selling sex are highlighted in the show, such as the close ties some forge with their clients and the personal empowerment – and disempowerment – experienced through the profession.

    The term opera is used in the loosest sense, with the show incorporating other musical styles like hip-hop, jazz and spoken word. It was in part inspired by Bertold Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera of 1928, following the tradition of using a supposedly highbrow artform to explore gritty, earthbound themes. Nonetheless, the concept has been embraced by the opera establishment, with the Royal Opera House providing financial backing and guidance.

    “Opera is one of the most established music and art forms, while sex work is one of the most marginalised professions,” says Etchart. “People often stop and stare when they see the poster for the show!”

    The sensitivity of the opera’s subject matter is brought home by the Experimental Experience’s choice to cast a mix of sex workers and their allies in the production. As no-one reveals who is who, anonymity is ensured.

    Contributing to the opera has been an intensely personal experience for many of the performers. The directors insist the intention is not to glorify sex work, rather to present a spectrum of viewpoints, unvarnished and straight from the horse’s mouth.

    “Our main message isn’t ‘sex work is really great!’ or ‘sex work is really bad!’” says Siobhan. “It’s just literally: listen to sex workers.

    “Whether you think it’s good or bad, objectification or empowerment, come and listen to a sex worker tell you about their life. Then you can open up a new dialogue.”

    The Sex Workers Opera is at Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL from 26–29 January 2015

  • Waiting for Godot to get modern makeover for Arcola production

    Waiting for Godot
    Waiting for Godot: Tom Stourton as Estragon and Tom Palmer as Vladimir. Photograph: Chloë Wicks

    Citizens, the wait is over. Waiting For Godot, by common consent one of the most significant English language plays to emerge from the twentieth century, is coming to a theatre near you as the Arcola prepares to raise the curtains on Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece.

    Traditionally casting older actors in the lead roles of Vladimir and Estragon, this performance will see comedy duo Totally Tom – which you may recognise from viral YouTube hit High Renaissance Man – take up the mantle, in a move aimed at turning traditional treatment of the text on its head and engaging a broader audience.

    The Hackney Citizen caught up with director Simon Dormandy for a peek behind the scenes. So what can we expect from the show?

    “It’s very funny, extremely sad, deeply weird and completely wonderful,” says Dormandy. “Everyone should see the play at least once in their life, and a good production is something you never forget.”

    Written after the end of the Second World War, I ask if the play is still timely.

    “It has in recent years started to feel like a period piece, at risk of becoming choked by its 1950s roots. Audiences at the Arcola production will see it set free from those roots and played as a completely contemporary play, about two young rough sleepers and the mad world they find themselves in once all sense of direction is lost.

    “By casting two brilliant young comedians [Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton] in the roles normally reserved for elderly classical actors, we hope to bring out the play’s immense humour and show that it is absolutely of our time,” Dormandy says.

    So how true does it stay to the original exactly? Very, by the sounds of things, though I wonder how they have made the play relevant to contemporary audiences.

    “By setting it in a recognisable contemporary world, with clothes, settings, props and verbal rhythms that are absolutely of this moment, by treating it as if it were a play written yesterday and allowing ourselves to respond freely to what it suggests, while honouring the text to the letter, and by casting two brilliant young comedians in the leading roles,” says Dormandy.

    So is this aimed at Beckett fans who are familiar with the play, or is it accessible to newcomers?

    “Both. I’m a Beckett fan, as is everyone involved in the production, and I hope we will flush out and throw up some new ways of seeing this magnificent play through our approach,” says Dormandy.

    “But I also want people who have never seen a Beckett play and are a bit put off by all the white wigs, inch-thick make-up and grey clothing normally associated with productions of his plays to feel confident they’ll get a completely accessible and thoroughly entertaining evening.

    “Yes, Beckett can and should be highly entertaining as well as profoundly challenging and, ultimately, life-enhancing.”

    Waiting For Godot
    7 May –  14 June 2014
    Arcola Theatre
    24 Ashwin Street
    E8 3DL

     

     

  • Banksy: The Room in the Elephant – review

    Wall in the Elephant actor Gary Beadle. Photograph: Paul Blakemore
    Wall in the Elephant actor Gary Beadle. Photograph: Paul Blakemore

    Banksy: The Room in the Elephant, now showing at the Arcola, is a double-bill that compares the man with the myth and asks questions about what art is and how we value it. But the central character is not Banksy.

    For seven years Tachowa Covington made his home in an abandoned water-tank outside Los Angeles. He lived, literally and figuratively, on the fringe, furnishing the tank with found objects and transforming it into a ‘palace in the sky.’ In 2011 Banksy, in town for the Oscars, spotted the tank and stencilled ‘this looks a bit like an elephant’ on its outside. Suddenly the tank had huge financial value and Tachowa was evicted from his home.

    The Room in the Elephant is a one-man, 55 minute play starring Gary Beadle of Eastenders fame, based on Tachowa’s story but making no claim to be factual. ‘Don’t no-one want the truth – they want the story,’ explains the imagined Tachowa. Bristol-based playwright, Tom Wainwright, says he “followed his nose into a giant can of worms where truth and fiction lead each other on a merry little dance,” and the play is a self-conscious attempt to ask, ‘who is entitled to tell whose story?’

    The play is followed by the short film Something from Nothing made by the Dallas filmmaker and friend of Tachowa, Hal Samples, comprising material gathered over seven years. It presents Tachowa at home in the tank, through being evicted, then documents his response as he becomes internationally famous through Wainwright’s play.

    There is an irony in the idea of artwork by Banksy, who has made his name as an anti-establishment graffiti artist, being used to displace this true maverick from his home. Something From Nothing reveals that this is not in fact what happened – in reality Tachowa had already been given notice to leave the tank before Banksy’s visit. But this information doesn’t detract from the play’s essential point: that art can be a form of social colonialism.

    It is also a satire on the contemporary circus around Banksy’s pieces. Over seven years Tachowa had invested in a truly original creation, lovingly upcycling a disused water tank into a quirky but comfortable living space. Before the graffiti appeared, it was viewed as a ‘piece of junk’ by the authorities, but it is now being preserved in storage and is the subject of a law suit, simply because the (somewhat inane) observation ‘this looks a bit like an elephant’ has been spray-painted on it. This looks a bit like the emperor is wearing no clothes.

    The Room in the Elephant was a sell-out in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013. Certainly the script is clever and Beadle gives a strong performance as the charismatic fictional Tachowa. It is Beadle’s talent which carries the show, as there’s little in the way of action.

    The film Something From Nothing is illuminating but at times incoherent and disjointed.

    The Room in the Elephant raises important questions for anyone interested in art and its politics. Otherwise it feels, like Banksy’s art – a little over-hyped.

    The Room in the Elephant is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL until 26 April.

  • Eldorado – review

    Eva Feiler as Manuela, Michael Colgan as Anton and Amanda Hale as Thekla in Eldorado at the Arcola Theatre
    Eva Feiler as Manuela, Michael Colgan as Anton and Amanda Hale as Thekla in Eldorado at the Arcola Theatre

    Eldorado’s cryptic depiction of emotional breakdown amongst the bourgeoisie, played against the backdrop of war, scoops us into a world of undefined destruction and well-delineated interior turmoil in Dalston’s spacious but intimate Arcola theatre.

    German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s play – which premiered ten years ago at Berlin’s experimental Schaubühne theatre – alludes to the european myth of El Dorado, a lost city of gold waiting for discovery by an adventurous conquerer, or as so many an exploitative European conquistador supposed.

    Director Simon Dormandy’s adaption of the play, translated by Maja Zade, rids us of context and does not allow the audience the satisfaction of knowing exactly what is going on.

    The war could be Iraq, or perhaps Afghanistan. Fear and claustrophobia haunt the stage, and sometimes the distant thunder of war seems only to embody the characters’ inner disturbance. Aschenbrenner (literally: Ash Burner) opens with a foreboding monologue on a darkened stage.

    As helicopters whir threateningly overhead, he paints a scene of futile destruction – animals escaped from the zoo and “refugees’ voices ringing out from the oval concrete,” before ending on a property sales pitch for his company, a narrative that will thread the showcase of broken relationships to which we are party.

    Those relationships are the mainstay of the production. The tortured love between Aschenbrenner (Mark Tandy plays a wicked, vivid and intensely humorous harbinger of destruction) and his naive, puppet-like employee Anton (Michael Colgan); that of Anton and his newly wed, neurotic pianist Thekla (Amanda Hale), and the one with her ebullient, infuriating mother (Sian Thomas) and toy-boy husband are sharply, unforgivingly drawn.

    Like characters in an Ibsen play, we observe, enjoy (or are distressed by) their interactions, but ultimately are held at arm’s length.

    Eldorado is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston E8 3DL until 3 May.