Theatre News

Off-West End Announcements – 29 May 2009

| Off-West End |

29 May 2009

Finborough hosts Georgian revival
The
play that launched the career of the late Karen Cartlidge is to get a
long-overdue revival next month. Apart From George,
by Australian writer Nick Ward, was one of the first commissions of the
newly formed National Theatre Studio in 1987, giving character actress
Cartlidge her break before roles for Mike Leigh and Lars Von Trier. The
play gets a limited six performance run at the Finborough on Sundays
and Mondays in June.

Trio of talent at the Tristram Bates
June
also sees the reunion of emerging playwright Kenneth Emson, young
director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder and designer Georgia Lowe for
Whispering Happiness, the second instalment of
Emson’s ambitious Town-Country trilogy at the Tristram Bates Theatre
(9 June-4 July). This provocative urban fairytale is another product of
the Old Vic New Voices playwriting programme.

Guildford goes al-fresco for Shakespeare
The
Guildford Shakespeare Company are cooking up a comic double bill for
their fourth season of open-air theatre. The Surrey countryside
provides the set as the company takes to the grounds of Guildford
Castle for The Taming of the Shrew (12-27 June),
before decamping to the lake at the University of Surrey for
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (9-18 July).

Seneca’s Thyestes for a digital age
Horror
fans take note. The Arcola Theatre is dragging Greek tragedy
Thyestes kicking and screaming into the 21st century
in a new multimedia staging by JMK award-winning director Polly
Findlay. The production, running from 3-27 June at the Dalston venue,
will use the latest digital technologies to bring a shock flick
aesthetic to Seneca’s revenge myth. Watch out for the rats.

Multimedia Medea at the Cock Tavern
In another classical reworking , Medea 4.0 – at the
Cock Tavern Theatre from 2-20 June – will transport Euripides’ heroine
to a modern corporate nightmare where her tragedy is repackaged by a
marketing company and sold to the highest bidder. Slovenian playwright
Saša Rakef has lifted Medea’s lines from the Greek and each performance
will be streamed over the internet in real time.

James Dean: the man, the myth, the play
When Jackie Skarvellis’s Long live James Dean premiered
at the 2007 Jermyn Street Festival, the script was praised for moving
as fast as the Hollywood legend’s car. Two years later, Skarvellis has
picked up a Best Auteur award and Above the Stage is hosting a new
production of her explosive exposé (4-20 June), the first British play
to be written about Dean’s life (and death).