Cindy Marcolina - Page 4

Girlhood comes to the Garrick. Rosie Day’s moving one-woman play Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon transfers to the West End helmed by Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran. Filled to the brim with trigger warnings and imbued with the blunt honesty and pure emotion owned by young girls only, the piece fits perfectly within the recent industry shift towards pink feminism. Directed by Georgie Staight, it’s a heartbreaking depiction of teenage depression and a touching journey through grief and loss. Eileen is barely a teenager when her sister dies of complications from an eating disorder. Suddenly turned into the only child of a grieving couple, she convinces herself that it’s her fault Olive died. Her parents are wrapped up tight in their own pain and her friends disappear. Unable to address the elephant in the room, unsurprisingly, she falls in with a bad crowd.

It’s easy to understand why Blue garnered excellent reviews and a Fringe First Award for their run in Edinburgh last year. It’s an intense, alarming, carefully eloquent, and raw achievement. It’s a reactive and reactionary piece of theatre, real and terrible, relevant and urgent. If all that doesn’t entice you to book for this exquisite sociopolitical debate, it’s only 60 minutes long and the perfect prologue to an evening of discussion at a bar.

All in all, this iteration of the production is a springboard. While it’s a missed opportunity at the moment, nothing's carved in stone when it comes to theatre. A firmer grasp on the play’s intent and a further unfurling of its core could make it a thorough analysis of the casual cruelty and everyday hurt in romantic relationships.

Nachtland is a nervous, difficult play whose purpose is decisively blurry. It doesn’t revel as much as it should in the unknotting of its cerebral conundrum and doesn’t bask in the incredible satire it holds. The ideas it presents are topical, yet the piece is distracted. It tries to be quirky and different, but the result is tired and unfocused. It will make audiences think and talk about what they just saw, but not necessarily in a good way.

It’s a piece of existential gig-theatre moulded with a cynical celebration of one of Japan’s most renowned authors and what he stood for. Presented in Japanese with surtitles, the experience is unlike anything that’s being staged at the moment and probably isn’t ideal for the average commercial theatregoer.

A highly intelligent and slightly arrogant cynic as a main character helms the investigative noir set against a bleak view of the business.

The departing artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse is going out in a blaze of glory. A starry cast leads Lucy Kirkwood’s latest play, a period piece that, curiously, ties in perfectly with Rufus Norris’ current venture south of the river, Nye. The further end of the 40s has Shropshire shackled by austerity. An engaged member of the Labour party, socialist GP Iris is lobbying in support of Nye Bevan’s radical fight to deliver free healthcare to Britain. Married to an ex-Navy medic turned full-time GP and mother to a young daughter who couldn’t be more different from her, she muddles her family life with her political activity. Everything changes when she meets Hollywood hotshot George Blythe.

Nothing ever happens in Nina and Noa’s lives. At 17 years old, they’ve never been kissed, or been asked out. They’ve never gone to a party and their parents are still together. It’s a tragedy. Friendless and more interested in books than in boys, they figure out they can write their own novel. Thus, they fantasise about sexy runaway cowboys and forbidden lust in their own version of a standard airport romance during their school breaks. Billie Esplen’s debut play is a young and adorable queer rom-com that explores the anxieties of two closeted teenage girls.

In an anonymous room in the City, a group of people is summoned to discuss the crimes of a man who swears his innocence. Jury Duty is as immersive as it gets.

Created with director Rachel Chavkin, it’s a story of tragic love and politics, defeat and defiance. An epic anthem for the lovers and the runaways. The actors mostly new to Hadestown, Hades’ underground factory, with only Gloria Onitiri returning as Persephone (rather than a Fate) and Beth Hinton-Lever in the ensemble.

The glamour of Old Hollywood loses its shine in John Logan’s newest labour of love. Set in the 60s in an industry fuelled by power struggles, this is less epic than The Motive and the Cue, but decisively more nerdy.

English composer Benjamin Britten is writing The Turn of the Screw. Based on a novella by Henry James, it follows the worries of a young governess sent to the countryside to take care of a pair of children. As Britten is building his melodies, the government is working hard to shut down the influence of what they call “high profile homosexuals’’ (think John Gielgud and friends).

Dodie Smith’s comedy is revived in a desaturated production that crackles with deliciously sly humour. Emily Burns directs a series of majestic tableaux that, while wordy and excessively traditional at times, offer an authentic slice of polite society. It’s not the most action-packed or dramatic piece in existence, but Dear Octopus turns out to be like a classic vintage wine: it’s sophisticated and might be an acquired taste, but it ultimately gets you jolly like only wartime entertainment can.

Jermyn Street’s Footprints Festival continues with the UK debut of an Italian modern classic. Written by Cristina Comencini in 2006, Two Rounds is a melancholic exploration of female solitude and human anguish.

The local NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service facility has a new temp, but Jay’s bright eyes and hopeful attitude grate against Angela’s 30 years’ worth of experience. This Might Not Be It confronts the issues that plague our national health services with an excavation of their human fallout.

Three women live parallel lives on the same London street. One desperately wants a baby, one regrets her choices, one is haunted by the past. Michèle Winstanley addresses motherhood and the female experience in a tender piece that becomes a sad reminder that, as women, we rarely fully win.

Directed by Anastasia Bunce, it’s knotty in parts and it partially loses its visual identity halfway through. The eloquent, physical interludes (by movement director Tessa Guerrero) that acted as scene changes and added an extra inch of inventiveness suddenly stop happening in favour of duller in-and-out moves in semi-darkness.

All in all, Cowbois isn’t a bad play. It’s a fun and gimmicky queer-affirming semi-comedy that makes for a good night out if you’re willing to close an eye here and there. It’s weird and long, but it means well.

What did our critic think of KIM'S CONVENIENCE at Park TheatreIn July 2018, a little series titled Kim’s Convenience was released internationally on Netflix.

Betty Parris and Abigail Williams’ lives are ruled by suspicion and spiritual insulation, where even playing is considered a sin. Everything changes when the latter starts working on John Proctor’s farm. Part of Jermyn Street Theatre’s Footprints Festival, The Good John Proctor bookends The Crucible, taking all its themes and putting them under the lenses of childhood. Regrettably, it’s underwhelming, muddled, and way too long for what it is.