“They fuck you up, your mum and dad” wrote Philip Larkin and it is precisely that sentiment that sits squarely at the heart of Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love currently playing at Found 111.
FOOL FOR LOVE – Found111
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad” wrote Philip Larkin and it is precisely that sentiment that sits squarely at the heart of Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love currently playing at Found 111.
FOOL FOR LOVE – Found 111
Despite being written in 1983, Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love never made it to Broadway until this time last year. Even then, Daniel Aukin’s production ran for a limited twelve week engagement at the 600-seat Friedman theatre, so clearly everyone thinks it need an intimate setting.
FOOL FOR LOVE – Found111
From within the darkness you can see someone sat in a chair, a Stetson lowered over the old man’s (Joe McGann) face. The lights go out completely and when they come up Rothenburg and Wilson are engaged in a highly animated conversation, so we begin.
FOOL FOR LOVE – Found111
Simon Evans’ production makes the most of the physicality of their interactions, whether slamming bodies into bedframes or doors into the shaky walls of the motel, their torment inescapable.
Theatre Podcast: Father Comes Home from the Wars, The Dover Road, Unfaithful
This week the London theatre bloggers discuss the premiere of Father Comes Home from the Wars at the Royal Court as well as recent runs of Unfaithful and The Dover Road.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Bug at Found111
James Norton and Kate Fleetwood star in this revival of Tracey Letts’ play exploring two people on the edge – but were the critics on the edge of their seats? Bug continues at Found111, Charing Cross Road, until 7 May 2016.
BUG – Found 111
Tracy Letts’ Bug at the Found111 space is a pressure cooker of paranoid chaos, as fascinating as it is terrifying. It draws a thin line between reality and neurosis, trapping the audience in a claustrophobic motel room, which represents both a cosy haven and a nausea inducing prison. The nature of fear, reality and human companionship are all held literally under the microscope in a breathlessly disquieting evening.
LAND OF OUR FATHERS – Found 111
This gripping and moving play by Chris Urch is filled with anger, secrets and how to cope in a life or death situation.
Closing Review: THE DAZZLE – Found 111
I’m still not sure what to make of The Dazzle – in the least comfortable fringe theatre newly created in the West End, up 76 steps and with a padlocked lift the first mystery is how Westminster Council licensed it. It starts out as quite a tender portrait of a brother caring for his autistic, introverted concert pianist twin but in Act 2 turns in to Grey Gardens without the jokes, the music or the outré ways to wear a cardigan.
My theatre diary: 4000 Days, Hangmen, The Dazzle, Jane Wenham, The Long Road South
I’m well overdue for a theatre diary, aren’t I? So here goes with a quick one on more new plays I’ve seen in recent (and not-so recent) weeks that I’d recommend catching and haven’t yet managed to squeeze in to separate blogs.
Weekly Theatre Podcast: The Dazzle, Grey Gardens, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Every week, a group of regular, dedicated, independent theatre bloggers gather together for intelligent discussion “from the audience’s perspective” about plays and musicals they’ve recently seen in London. Lively, informed and entertaining. My Theatre Mates is delighted to syndicate the (still) As Yet Unnamed London Theatre Podcast (AYULTP). Shows discussed (with timings) in this edition’s podcast: The Dazzle – Found111, …
Critical Digest: Four 5* shows in London & Sheffield and a 1* Peter Pan
Review extracts from four shows that got 5-star reviews: The Lorax at the Old Vic, Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar, Show Boat at Sheffield’s Crucible & The Dazzle at Found111.
THE DAZZLE – Found 111
Andrew Scott, farouche and “méchant”, a man-child oddity with a painfully fastidious musical ear, is the concert pianist Langley Collyer: David Dawson, already haggard with care and half-infected with his brother’s impossible mentality, is Lang’s brother Homer. We will watch their deterioration: not without laughs but ultimately with a disturbing pity.