The time to hesitate is through

We are here. After months of angst, tears, sweat, more reading than you can imagine, and rehearsals upon rehearsals, we are in our final week at RADA. I can't actually believe that I am here. It honestly feels like mere weeks ago that we were all crammed into the tiny basement studio on the first day, receiving our RADA booklets and cautiously selecting whether we would do scene study with Tom or Andrew.

I have learned so much about myself in this year. I have learned that I can make some pretty interesting theatrical pieces. I have learned that I can maybe, sort of, write a little. I have learned that the times when I feel most comfortable about a piece of work, those are the times when I haven't done enought. I have learned that I really like to scare myself into action. I have also learned from (and with) some of the most brilliant and talented people I have ever had the opportunity to be in the same room as. Tutors, obviously, but more importantly my fellow students, whose intellect, bravery, and talent have pushed me to become a better artist every minute of every day. I only wish that we could stay together and create work, rather than scatter the globe as we are bound to do. I will do everything possible to work with each of them again in the future.

So. . . as the title states, the time to hesitate is through. Dissertation performances are underway. I am assisting by performing in two presentations; Dena Rysdam Miller's adaptation of The Little Prince, and Holly Sharp's devised piece Nil by Mouth, about mental illness. I will also be reading a new play in development for Nika Obdizinski.

Largest looming in my future is my own piece - No More Prayers - an interrogation of Antigone through dramatic and philosophical history. Creating this piece has been a rollercoaster, and it has morphed to something completely different from what I first imagined, although simultaneously it continues to be an embodiment of that first seed of an idea. The piece I have ended up with is (I hope) the start of something bigger, that will continue and develop into a full production down the road. Thursday will be a "first viewing" for the work-in-progress, and I hope to share some photos and video of the presentation as well as the subsequent Q&A.

For all intents and purposes, the blog will be dark until mid next week, at which time I will try to make sense of this all. And wrap my head around the final written aspect of the dissertation, not to mention my impending move back to Canada and everything that entails.

In other news, I can happily announce that I will be directing a handful of readings for new plays at Sarasvati FemFest in September (Winnipeg) and will also be developing a piece titled Dear Mama, inspired by Sondheim's Gypsy for the RMTC SondheimFest in early 2013 (Winnipeg). More on those later, once I regain sanity.

Image: Cindy Sherman, Untitled 175

Matilda @ The Cambridge Theatre (West End)

It isn't often that you can sit through a full length musical and not have even a second where you feel that you are in the moment of superfluousness, with the the song added to make the second act long enough, or to ensure each character had enough to do to justify paycheques.  Matilda was a solid 2.5 hours of well written music and scenes, performed with gusto by this brilliant cast. The directing and choreography was fabulous, most notably the work with the children. There was not a second of doubt or uncertainty, each piece of choreography executed with impeccable precision and commitment, and crafted to tell us something about the story as the song went on.

Favourite moments for me included the song and choreography for Alphabet Song, which cleverly manipulates the set piece from school gate, to play climber, to shelf of alphabet blocks, weaving bodies in and around the structure beautifully to move the story forward and capture the terror young kids feel in approaching school the first time. Also beautiful was When I Grow Up, choreographed on swings with large sweeping gestures. Finally, in a moment of comic genius (and too bad for those hanging out in the bar at the interval!) was Telly, performed by the father and son of the Wormwood family. Had me reeling with joy.

Most importantly, though, is the magic this show brings for kids. My own little Matilda, obsessed with this book, was on the edge of her seat, grinning ear to ear for the duration of the piece. She was thrilled by the scariness of Trunchbull, the caricatured ridiculousness of the Wormwoods, and the moment Matilda accomplishes her first miracle.

I strongly recommend this show. Keep in mind that the original Dahl book is dark, and the adults in general (Miss Honey aside) are not nice to the kids, so preparing young audience members is essential.

Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye @ Tate Modern

It is funny how we become attached to the work of certain artists. I was in my 3rd year of undergrad, doing a 'painting project' for our honours acting class, in which we were to write a monologue as a character from a painting to 'come alive'. Most others selected paintings that were fairly naturalist and impressionist. Feeling edgy, I selected one of Munch's wood cuts; how edgy expressionism feels in an undergrad degree in the middle of Canada.

Anyway, I have spent more and more time over the years looking at various phases of his work. Obviously his famous work such as The Scream, Sick Child and Starry Night are beautiful and captivating in their own way, but it is Munch's fascination with photography that I find truly intriguing. I was extremely grateful to this exhibition for showcasing the photography alongside the painting, as it adds an opportunity to see how his experimentation with photographs, moving and unreliable images captured on film fed into the paintings. The movement in Galloping Horse was evident in a manner much more clear than it might have been otherwise.

His later photographs push this further, with images doubling, blurring, looking phantasmagoric. Curious that this led into his period dealing with fights, loss of the ability to see, and ultimately death; each of these is a mirror of our mortality, seen crisply in the photographs. The images that move, but are caught still, seem to capture that essence which is lost in death.

This is a beautiful exhibition, curated with extensive care, and one I strongly recommend.

Damien Hirst @ The Tate Modern

This is an exhibition which from its very start, pushes the viewer's boundaries, and slowly delves further and further into the mind of Hirst and his views on life and death. What is most remarkable is seeing the counterpoint between his early work and that which comes later, still focusing on the same themes almost to a point of obsession, but with a change in tone or material.

Some pieces, I found, don't evoke as much; the spot paintings, for example, with their order and perfection, I found unappealing. That said, when Hirst imposes order on the objects of every day life as he does in Still and Doubt - precisely displaying medicines and medical tools - that his work truly comes alive. He talks of wanting the shark in The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living to scare people. I find the frightening order and precision of the medicine cabinets, pills, and instruments for surgery far more frightening. That which occurs in nature may frighten us, but as Hirst highlights, is simply a part of life and death. These man-made implements are outside that cycle, an attempt to tamper with the cycle of life and death, to prolong the experience and cheat the inevitable.

The most profound of Hirst's works in this exhibition was The Acquired Inability to Escape, which features a human presence of desk, chair, cigarettes, in a case similar to those displaying the formaldehyde-preserved animals. It was a stark reminder that despite the medicines and advancements of science, we too are mortal.

This exhibition is on at the Tate Modern, Southbank London to 9 September 2012.

Photo: Damien Hirst - The Acquired Inability to Escape

The Performer Experience

The two performances I have been involved with this week have gotten me thinking about the performer experience in various forms of theatre. In the traditional, commercial theatre, the performer is a vessel; they experience physical work, speak words, move around the stage (in musicals, jump and dance about) but little consideration of the experience is given to their perspective. Everything is facing outward through the proscenium, targeted at the bums in seats who have paid their £30.

The two pieces I took part in seriously challenged this.

How We Met (still running at the RADA Festival - www.rada.ac.uk - until Saturday 7 July) is a piece of promenade theatre. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that the audience go through the experience one at a time, with headphones on and a host to follow, guiding them through a way of seeing while walking through the streets. As a performer in this kind of piece, with your small but important pattern to perform repeatedly, feelings of loneliness and solitude are evoked. Much like the people enjoying the performance, the performers are simultaneously together (as a unit) but alone (doing their specific sequence). Not unlike people every day in life, who are together in this experience of London in July of 2012, but alone in our own path and perspective. The performer experience thus reflects the audience experience, taking the performer on a journey as well.

Moving Forest (500 Slogans) was an entirely different style of piece. Part of a 12 hour performance art installation, we read the poem amidst all sorts of other noisy installation pieces, crowds out on their lunch, workmen going by. Even our interpretation of the poem, as a cacaphony of noise and sound, rendering us unable to pick out the actual value from the unending stream of information flowing at us in every day society reflected this. While reading, though, focused, moving in my pattern and reading the text as rehearsed, I found myself almost in a trance-like state, unaware of all the other noise around me, having blocked it out. I cannot speak for the audience experience too directly, but writer Matthew Fuller (of 500 Slogans) noted that coming outside to our cacaphonous reading was an audible break from the volume and noise of the other installations, despite its overwhelming sense on its own.

I propose that the most exciting pieces of theatre are those which help the performer experience something while they are helping the audience experience something; the performer is not simply a vessel, but a conspirator, experiencing and changing in the world at the same time as their auditor...each having an affect on the other.

On Failure

Last week, our "Theatre in London Today" class was visited by performance artist Bruno Roubicek, who has worked a fair bit with Forced Entertainment. For those unfamiliar with Forced Entertainment work, I definitely suggest looking them up..will include a few video links below for you as well. Anyway, Forced's work and Bruno's work focus on the aesthetics of failure, something he suggests "reflects the failings of authority. . . questioning the legitimacy of the establishment" and which reflects "the postmodernist concern with failure of society and economics". Rather than aiming for a performance which would be successful by the regular standards - realistic set, believable performances, clear narrative, etc - Forced Entertainment seem to perform the anxiety of the modern (Western) experience. In one show, Bloody Mess, the characters express how they want the audience to see them in an honest confessional style format looking almost like an AA Meeting. The play then continues on to portray them in a way that undermines these desires, hence performing their failure to achieve a desired effect.

While sometimes trying to the audience, this work most certainly affects the audience (even if the result is frustration, boredom, or anger). I respect this fully, because so much "enjoyable" and "successful" theatre has no effect whatsoever on its audience, who happily leave after their evening of entertainment, unmoved by that which passed before them.

Now, in Bruno's discussions, he took us back through a history of failure in performance, demonstrating the skills of people like Jack Benny, Monty Python, other comedians (unfortunately my limited familiarity with Brit comics pre-2000 limited my ability to grab all the names...). One commonality I noticed was the relationship with the permission to laugh and the performance of failure; every performance, even the ones that took themselves most seriously, seemed to set themselves up to give permission to the audience to laugh. A free pass to identify failings and laugh at their performance in public.

This, of course, got me thinking; what happens if this free pass is not provided? If we do not give the audience permission to laugh at the characters, their situations, and their failed attempts to perform a task, but rather demand the audience's serious attention. Is it possible to perform failure in a situation which does not first give the laughter permission to escape? Or is this our only way to watch failure without turning to despair? Further yet, is performing the despair of failure functional? Does it, too teach us something?

I performed in a show in 2011 which, now that I examine it from this perspective, did perform failure; in that case, it was the failure of the characters to act in a way that would get what they wanted. The piece allowed them to re-visit those situations from their original plays, role-playing to re-enact situations where they could be dominant. One reviewer picked up on the heavy thread of despair running through it. Perhaps despair is the dramatic equivalent to laughter. For many people seeing this show, the despair was overwhelming, to the point that some reviewers criticized it for doing so, not allowing a reprieve so to speak. But do we not have something to experience from this as well? If you consider the ancient Greeks, plays like Medea and Oedipus are one long-running moment of despair and hopelessness after the next, but this adds together for a final result of hope; the ability to act or choose differently. Despair can be a useful tool.

If this is so, it is certainly difficult to ask audiences to come experience despair for an hour or two, and pay to do so. But perhaps this is necessary; for too long we have seen a comic approach to performing failure, and in fact, it has become mainstream with programs like John Stewart in the US, Mock the Week in the UK, and This Hour Has 22 minutes in Canada (among others reaching further back). I suggest that while these comic approaches to failure have worked to incite action in the past, they are becoming common, and therefore not causing the impact they might once have had. Forced Entertainment's work does seem to straddle this gray area between comedy and despair, having their audiences feel slightly aware of the impropriety of their laughter. I think this can go further.

Some videos from Forced:

Upcoming Projects....

Because a dissertation just isn't enough, I've got some extra projects on the side coming up shortly.

First, I have workshopped and will be performing in a piece of new writing titled How We Met as part of the RADA Festival on July 2 and 3. This is a piece of one-on-one theatre performed on promenade through Bloomsbury in London. The piece runs throughout July 2 to 7 - for more information or tickets, check out the festival site here: http://www.rada.ac.uk/whats-on/rada-productions/sales-howwemet

Second, I am contributing to a performance art installation titled Moving Forest, to be performed July 4 (afternoon) at the Chelsea College of Art, described as "a twelve hour sound art opera of betrayal and rebellion". The section I am involved in is a reading of a long form poem, 500 slogans, in the Parade Ground outside the college. For more about this interesting adventure, look here: http://www.movingforest.net

Finally, I am participating in a reading for the Early Modern Reading group at Birkbeck College, on 4 July (evening) where we will be reading John Lyly's The Woman In The Moon, led by Darren Royston.

Have to keep busy! I hope you can try to make it out to one (or all!) of these adventures. And more posts related to work-in-progress dissertation presentations soon. . .

Review - Six Actors In Search of a Director by Steven Berkoff @ Charing Cross Theatre

Took this in on Saturday evening, with a surprisingly small house. The premise - built upon Pirandello's classic Six Characters in Search of an Author - places six 'bit' actors on a film set in the middle of nowhere winter-time, forced to wait. The characters spend the ensuing 90 minutes in close quarters, with little in common, but forced to get along so the work, when it returns, can be done.

Overall, the dialogue leaned toward cheese, but at the same time did stay away from cliche, walking that fine line of parodying actor habits and tendencies without jumping into the land of cliche. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the delivery of the text was rather shouty; rather than relax and allow the words to work, the actors seemed to work really hard to show us how they worked. With little success. There were certainly redeeming moments, and again, the script had a nice, almost campy, look at theatre and life, which was highly enjoyable. I simply can't handle people shouting text at me for 90 minutes.

Review - Cymbeline at RADA

Sometimes, directors make choices to situate a play in a specific place or time, and despite the many logical choices that may ensue, it simply doesn't work for the play. This production was almost completely opposite; picking up on various themes in the words of the text, the production was placed in a no-space, where all objects necessary appeared at the right time, rooms and spaces appeared, and seemingly insane costume or character choices just seemed to work, despite my inability to comprehend them from time to time. It is very rare that a director can make choices that appear so arbitrary, and yet the audience are completely willing to buy and go along with it.

The piece, running a solid 2.5 hrs with no interval, was a marathon for the performers, who each played multiple parts, sang scene changes, and had an epic danced battle between the Romans and Britons. The performances were not uniformly strong, however overall the ensemble shone and worked extremely well together as a cohesive unit.

A very enjoyable afternoon of theatre.

Musings on Creation

I really honestly feel that you need to write with live bodies. The piece I am creating now, under the working title of Approaching Antigone (who knows what the real title will be) is, in the end, a performance installation, that is most likely only going to have me on stage. I have spent a lot of time reading, researching, developing ideas, but somehow until I am in the studio, nothing really comes out.

Today, I spent a lovely two hour session with a like-minded creator, trying out things and bouncing ideas off her both intellectually and physically. The ability to ask her to try something, see it in another's body, enables my mind to start to piece together how this will look to an outsider, the images it is creating. Particularly working without mirrors, this makes it possible for me to have a sense of the stage pictures my work is creating.

I tend to be extremely image-based, or text-based, and have always troubled with merging the two into a single piece. I either create a dance-theatre piece, or a text-theatre piece. I am aiming with this to merge the two so that neither text nor movement could exist without the other; i want there to be a reliance, a relationship, between the two that is parasitic in nature. The movement feeds the words which feeds the movement.

Only one more workshop left with the actors before I spend 3 weeks on my own finishing the devising process. I am going to do the majority of devising work in my flat, likely recording myself and then watching playback. Then I will move to the studio for 3 sessions. This project is really big in my head, and I need to get it out into my body and on to paper/video so that I can begin to piece something together to share in July.

Might share some videos soon.

Review - Stars in the Morning Sky by Alexander Galin @ RADA

Set in Russia in the 1980s, just prior to the Moscow Olympics, this play is focused around "undesirables" whom are shipped out of the city for the period of the games, to ensure that Communist Russia shows well to the world. It isn't much of a stretch to bring this topic to relevance today, in London, where although I haven't read about it, this must be happening. Even Winnipeg, when hosting the Pan American games in 1999 mysteriously had no homeless people on the streets for the duration of the games.

The play begins with a scene in Russian, which we then see re-done in English, to great effect. The remainder of the play is in (mainly) lower class English accents, making the above association even stronger. These women - prostitutes from the streets of Moscow - are shipped off to an awful countryside "rooming house" to sit out the games and stay out of trouble.

Overall the performances and direction were good, and I did find myself apsorbed in the play. Accents did at times wobble into RP, and it is these moments in which I found myself falling out of synch with the piece. As well, the build to the final scene of anarchy seemed rather sudden; the movement of the play from polite interaction to wild drunken revolt did not build to a boil, instead seeming to flash fry. I suspect it would have been more effective if this built over time, so that the audience feel pulled along with the revolt that would soon characterize all of Russian society as the USSR broke up. This is a great ensemble piece, with strong parts for 5 women and small-ish parts for two men.

The design and use of space were clever, using the audience aisle to position the door and outside behind the audience, moving our focus. Once again, the lighting design is stand out - there are some seriously talented lighting designers studying at RADA right now.

The British 10k - 8 July

Time for me to ask something of you readers (and lurkers) - I am running the British 10k in London on July 8th in support of RADA scholarships, and am looking for donations. Any of you lurkers who are artists know how horribly expensive school can be, and how few scholarships there are for arts students. Fundraising from this will help with the Hardship fund at the school, and for creating future scholarships for students.

You can donate here: http://www.justgiving.com/Kendra-Jones

Any amount is greatly appreciated, as it all adds up. Thank you in advance for any support you can offer!

Review - The Conquest of the South Pole by Manfred Karge - Arcola Theatre @ The Rose, Kingston

In premise, a strong idea; 4 unemployed lads from east London, working their way through social exclusion in their own way, bond over the story of an expedition to the South Pole that begins as an escape, but slowly merges with their own reality. The job market, prospects, become metaphorically the endless antarctic ice, and the goal of reaching the South Pole something never fully attainable. Very timely in its subject matter, the production unfortunately does not hold up. The script - disjointed and episodic - felt as though it was being moulded into a linear, psychological storyline, rather than allowing the juxtaposition of scenes that may or may not make sense. Having not read the original German version, it is tough for me to say just what role translation and direction jointly held in this.

The performances were adequate at best, with mere moments of interest perking up for me. I strongly dislike actors who appear to be over-directed, with choreographed physicality that does not come across as natural to their being. This may seem like a contradiction given my penchant for physical theatre and dance, however pieces which manage this balance of choreography that seems to be pouring out of the actor rather than painted on it are truly remarkable, and what we strive for. This piece did not have this quality.

Again, I stress, there were moments. Unfortunately they were few and far between, the gaps being overwhelmed by actors shouting in roaming accents.

I do, really, see a seed of something interesting here - it simply didn't get to blossom.

Labels

So, as I approach my 30th birthday, growing ever further from the "emerging" 16-25 year old artist category, but certainly not yet "established" at least by my definition of the word, I am at a loss for how to describe my position. It is funny that we see such a need to rank and label everyone and everything - emerging director, young theatre practitioner, veteran actor - as if the label somehow justifies what we do. Can't I just be an artist? A moderately successful artist? Does that work? It is hardly a selling feature to write on my next grant proposal. I can see it now - "Kendra isn't quite young, nor is she old. She has done some work, but not a ton. Truthfully, she lives a life of artistic moderation." Not really going to rake in the cash.

I don't know whether I really have anything to say about this, beyond what is above....what do you think? What do you call yourselves?

Also related to the birthday, I'll be travelling to Paris in a couple weeks to celebrate my 30th. I thought that given my proximity now, and the elegance that is added to any task by doing it in French, I would turn 30 en francais. It is better that way. I have not been before, and am looking forward to taking in Montmartre, the Seine and all the public gardens, along with some French Gothic architecture at Notre Dame. I also plan to make a pilgrimage to Montparnasse cemetery. Unlike those who visit the graves of more popular figures (Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, etc at Pere Lachase) I plan to visit with Ionesco, Beckett, and Sartre, 3 minds with whom I have been engaging over the past 6 years or so. I do love cemeteries, but have never been one to visit "famous" grave sites (although my toy poodle once peed on Louis Riel's grave in St Boniface) so this will be an interesting and unique day out. Also, I love the idea of creeping out my daughter with an afternoon in the cemetery. I am a nice parent.

Intellectual Fan Girl

Our dissertation term (aka right now) is peppered with weekly lectures and workshops to help us along with our process, and also to help us consider paths once we have finished the MA. This has included various events from panels with emerging artists, Q&A with former students of the course, and talks about casting and organizing. A highlight has been the fabulous workshop on directing from Andrew Visnevski for which the quote of the evening (whilst dissecting a scene from The Duchess of Malfi) was " 'How Now?' here means 'Holy Fuck she's going to shoot my balls off' " - something you have to imagine this polished, intellectual, very proper man in sweater vest and tie saying to get the full effect.

The most recent installment was from the academic side, and featured the brilliant Elin Diamond, feminist theatre writer and professor at Brandeis University in the US. Elin's lecture focused on a chapter of her book - Unmaking Mimesis - which looks at Brecht through a feminist lens, calling for a Feminist Gestic Theatre. A chapter (and book) I would strongly recommend.

What was most inspiring, for me anyway, was her discussion of how she got to where she is now. She began as an actor, trained in drama school and working professionally, but always had an intellectual side, writing essays and reading voraciously. After completing her MA and committing to being an academic, her focus was on bringing theatre and performance into the contemporary discussions of criticism. She argues that playwrights are theoreticians within each play, and the time spent to consider a play and/or performance text is unendingly valuable in understanding many of the ideas that scholars so readily apply to painting, philosophy, gender studies, etc. I was encouraged to know that it is possible to make a move such as this; to sit on both sides of things, and force not only work, but serious intellectual consideration of the work through your own writing. This is something which I hope to be able to do with at least minor success in the coming years.

10 Weeks With Genet

This is my portfolio, bearing creative and academic witness to my 10 week encounter with Jean Genet during the MA.

The "hard copy" was handed in as an installation - dirtied paper, various trash items from scenes and things through the 10 weeks, reminiscent of Tracey Emin, crumpled and in a trash bin.

10WeeksWithGenet_KendraJones_2012

Going Beyond To Return

This is an adaptation of an essay I wrote on the MA earlier this year, looking at the history of tragedy and what all of this theory means to someone trying to create theatre today. Please share your thoughts!

KendraJones_BeyondToReturn_2012.ashx

Head is Swirling

An MA dissertation in any form is a challenging prospect. One in which you will be not only researching a subject, but creating a response to it theatrically as well as writing on it academically is an entirely new level of challenge.

Things I am learning:

1) I really like to research. To a fault. There comes a point where reading yet another version of Antigone (or reading it again for the 100th time), watching anther German Opera version, or listening to another random lecture from the RA about any painter ever to have lived is just not going to do anything. You need to create. You need to put down the books and get up in the studio and just see what comes out. I am approaching this point now.

2) I have a tendency to want everything to fit to a plan, but at the same time happen randomly. The two are not compatible. I have been hit with two major setbacks to my plan - in the form of casting issues which were first solved, then sort of solved, then not solved at all - both of which had me reeling last week. Several hours we spent lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, surrounded by my iPad and copies of the play, listening to intense music whilst wondering what to do. I do learn the most from these things though; the times when my left and right brain are battling it out over order versus chaos are the times when the most remarkable ideas come out.

3) The play has the answer. It always has the answer, you just have to give it time to tell you. Luckily, I had the time in this instance, and didn't end up staying up nights bawling at my lack of options.

So, phase 1 of the dissertation approach (reading like a maniac) is coming to a close. My first workshop to lead will be in just over a week, and I am looking forward to just playing. It is funny that when reading, I get so many ideas, mostly in the form of physical images in my head, all of which seem to be contrary to the last. Right now there are about 50 "moments" I have imagined. The first 3 workshops will be a chance to try these out, see what actually works physically and with text or music, and then I will go away to try to piece together the first draft of a piece. Then I will come back for 3 more workshops to sew it together and share it on the 19th of July at RADA.

From here, oodles of reflection on the process, writing to pull in all the inspiration and thoughts to create the piece along with the future...where does this go now. And more importantly, where do I go after this whirlwind of a year, personally, and artistically.

Review - King Lear - Belarus Free Theatre @ Shakespeare's Globe

This is the kind of production that changes your mind about everything. Belarus Free Theatre brought their politics to the fore very clearly on several fronts in this production. First, performing in Belarusian rather than the "legal" Russian of Belarus. Second, in their sparse, minimalist interpretation of the play, proving that you can take away the funding, the building, most everything, but you can't take away the fire of theatre when there is talent and something to say to the world.

When we critique most productions of Shakespeare, we critique the use of the poetry, the selected cuts, the understanding of the play. This production took away our ability to do this by being done in Belarusian, but also in the layering of sound, singing and piano under soliloquies, soundscapes created through noisy tarps and water; despite this, the sounds and images created on stage seemed to evoke the poetry in their very existence. Never before have I felt the cold fury of Lear on the heath in such a powerful manner, or the haunting moment of Lear mourning Cordelia's death. The incorporation of Orthodox religious-sounding songs, beginning with happier folk songs and evolving to dark chants haunting the pace underscored the piece perfectly. Lear's violence toward his daughters and everyone around, and their reciprocal violence toward Lear was frightening and stirring, evoking thoughts of life in an authoritarian regime. When Lear and Cordelia are caught after the French lost the war, the faceless soldiers, speaking in hushed tones sent chills up my spine.

This was my first experience of the Belarus Free Theatre's work live, having only read/heard about them. I will do everything I can to see their work again and again.

Review - Posh by Laura Wade (Royal Court @ Duke of York's Theatre, West End)

I saw this last week, on the opening night of the previews for this West-End transfer from the Royal Court. Posh was highly successful for the Royal Court a couple years back, completely selling out its run, and receiving strong reviews from some camps for its bold anti-Tory politics. Others did not find the politics so convincing.

Sadly, despite the outstanding performances and production, I have to side with those critics who did not find the initial production as political as it claimed to be. Presenting us with a clique of entitled (and titled) Eton-Oxford boys enjoying a night of debauchery, Wade is clearly aiming to show us what is wrong with those in power in England (and elsewhere). In this, she is successful; the young men come across as awful people, initially in their brazen plans, then as the play goes on, in their misogyny, violence, and ability to squeak out of trouble unscathed, in spite of the destruction they have caused, all with the wave of a pen over a cheque. That said, the play is rather one-sided - we do not see a glimmer of dimension to these characters. Wade presents them without a shred of compassion or decency, only concerned for themselves. I left feeling like the play hadn't given me anything I didn't already know, and didn't challenge me to think about the situation in a new light; it encouraged the sort of envy and derision these characters accuse the 'middle classes" of in the play, rather than attempting to present an alternative.

As I said, the production itself was strong. All performers were well cast and excelled in their roles; notably the pub owner and his daughter brought 3-dimensional life to characters who could run the risk of being hokey stereotypes. The clever set and use of choreographed set changes added to this (although the musical interludes could have been done without...the first was intriguing and used the set and history well, after which they devolved into a Glee-style singalong in my opinion).

It is certainly a play worth seeing. I'm just not sure it achieved what it set out to do.