Ravenhill Cycles Across London to Get Treasure

At last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe, Shopping and F**king author Mark Ravenhill (pictured) set himself a challenge: to write a new 30-minute play every day and premiere it before breakfast (See News, 17 Aug 2007). The gargantuan effort earned him a Fringe First Award at the time and now the fruits of his labours will be offered up to Londoners in a unique cross-capital initiative.

Sixteen of the plays are being produced as a cycle, under the collective title Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, with performances spread out from 3 to 20 April 2008 at a variety of venues (See News, 8 Nov 2007): the National, the Royal Court, the Gate (all three of which are co-producing the initiative with Out of Joint and Paines Plough) – and, less conventionally, a Victorian warehouse in Shoreditch.

Exploring the personal and political effects of war on modern life via a collage of different scenes, the plays all take their titles from diverse classic works including War and Peace, Paradise Lost, Birth of a Nation, Crime and Punishment and G&S operetta The Mikado. Artistic directors Dominic Cooke (Royal Court), Max Stafford-Clark (Out of Joint), Roxana Silbert (Paines Plough) and Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell (Gate) are amongst those helming the new stagings.

The cycle of plays comprises: The Mikado, The Odyssey, Intolerance and Crime and Punishment, presented as two double bills at the NT from 3 to 5 April; The Mother presented by Out of Joint at the Royal Court from 8 to 12 April; also at the Royal Court, Birth of a Nation, from 8 to 12 April, and the double bill of Fear and Misery and War and Peace, from 15 to 19 April; the double bill of Armageddon and Women in Love at the Gate from 16 to 18 April; and, in various one-hour groupings care of Paines Plough at the Village Underground venue in east London, Women of Troy, Love (But I Don’t Want That), Paradise Lost, War of the Worlds and Twilight of the Gods.

To coincide with Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat’s London premiere, Ravenhill will take part in a Platform discussion on 9 April 2008 at the National.

– by Terri Paddock