LEGACIES Plays The Greenwich Playhouse, Runs October 6-10
By: Gabrielle Sierra Sep. 08, 2009
‘Legacies' is the latest production from burgeoning theatre company Open Stage. Broaching the subject of social inheritance the play asks how the actions and deeds of one generation hold ramifications for the next. Set against a backdrop of greater events stretching over almost a century it follows five individual stories. Starting with an execution for cowardice in World War I and culminating with recent events in Iraq the play also takes in the Windrush influx of West Indian immigrants in the Fifties and how racism served to shape the attitudes of future generations. Baked bean adverts of the Sixties, the Winter of Discontent under Callaghan's Labour Government in the Seventies. Rubik's Cube, Wham, The Clash, the Millennium and the predicted Y2K computer crash along the way.
As with all its productions Open Stage literally takes its material straight from the horse's mouth for this is a hard hitting drama set in and around a cemetery. Tackling thorny issues such as mental health, crime and addiction Legacies is collaboratively written and performed by those with firsthand experience. It offers a controversial warts and all account of how the consequences of social ills are perpetuated through one generation onto the next.
Born out of the Open Book project at Goldsmiths College, Open Stage strives to create issue- based theatre to highlight the problems faced by those involved and raise the profile of an enterprise that has helped so many.
Comments on Open Stage's previous production at the Greenwich Playhouse, The Dicephalus Project, "a startling and thought provoking look at the realities of some people's lives", "darkly humorous, but uncompromisingly honest and worthy of a much wider audience", "It was hard to believe that some of these performers had never been on stage before", "I cried - and laughed".
LEGACIES by Open Stage, Directed by: Michael Mahony; Produced by: Janice Larkin Written by: Open Stage, Open Stage Dates: Tuesday 6 October to Saturday 10 October 2009 Times: 7.30pm;
Tickets: £8, £5 (concs)
Venue: GREENWICH PLAYHOUSE
Greenwich Station Forecourt, 189 Greenwich High Road, LONDON SE10 8JA
Box Office: 0208 858 9256; boxoffice@galleontheatre.co.uk
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