In Complicité Theatre’s Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, Kathryn Hunter keeps the audience engaged as her confidante and our gateway into shining a light on the anti-ecological policies of local government. The production team, especially Dick Straker’s video design, should also be commended.
NEWS: Complicité partners with Belgrade Theatre for the world premiere of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Renowned international touring company Complicité’s world premiere production of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, the new stage adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s novel of the same name, will play Belgrade Theatre Coventry’s Main Stage from 18 to 22 April 2023. The venue is also one of the production’s co-producing partners.
‘One to admire but not quite to love’: Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead – Touring ★★★★
A Complicite show is event theatre. Previous works such as A Disappearing Number, An Encounter and The Master and Margarita are locked in a pantheon of the great works of my lifetime. So, it’s no surprise to learn that I admired their latest work Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead immeasurably. What I didn’t do, was fall for it.
‘It places sound firmly front & centre’: THE ENCOUNTER – Complicite (Online review)
Simon McBurney performs this stupendous and extraordinary solo show from Complicite. Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin’s soundscape is nothing short of a triumph.
Ought To Be Clowns’ 10 favourite shows of 2019
Ought To Be Clowns barely saw 250 shows this year, quiet by his standards. And as is the way of these things, here’s a rundown of some of the productions that moved me most…
NEWS: Complicite tours Pacifist’s Guide, revives McBurney’s The Encounter
Complicité programme for 2018 will include a reimagined version of Bryony Kimmings’ musical A Pacificist’s Guide to the War on Cancer and the return of the company’s multi award-winning one-man show The Encounter starring artistic director Simon McBurney, which will have a new three-week run at London’s Barbican from mid-April.
Text of the Day: The Kid Stays in the Picture
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE – Royal Court
The beauty of fiction is that its stories have both compelling shape and deep meaning — they are dramas in which things feel right and true and real. The trouble with real life is that it’s the opposite: it is messy, frequently shapeless and often meaningless.
THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE – Royal Court
The beauty of fiction is that its stories have both compelling shape and deep meaning — they are dramas in which things feel right and true and real. The trouble with real life is that it’s the opposite: it is messy, frequently shapeless and often meaningless.
THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE – Royal Court
Bringing the memoir of Hollywood Legend Robert Evans to the stage was always going to be a challenge. How to do justice to the sweep of the story, from lowly women’s clothing salesman to tinseltown mover and shaker?
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Beware of Pity at the Barbican
Simon McBurney directs this vivid account of one man’s slide into a terrible situation and his efforts to get himself out of it. Here is what critics have been saying about it.
NEWS: Cast announced for Complicite’s The Kid Stays in the Picture at Royal Court
Cast is announced today for the premiere of Complicite’s new play The Kid Stays in the Picture, based on the life of legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans and adapted from his memoir, which premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in March.
THE ENCOUNTER – Touring
The Encounter is an adventure story which gets inside your head. Literally. Every member of the audience is issued with a set of headphones and using cutting edge audio technology we are transported to the Amazonian rainforest where we find ourselves inside the head of Loren McIntyre, a stranded American photojournalist.
Diary of a Theatre Addict: 49 shows in six weeks, getting up to date
I’ve not updated my diary of a theatre addict for six weeks now — I was last here on January 31 — since when I’ve seen all of 49 shows, including outings to Newbury, Dartford, Clwyd, Manchester, Bromley and Cardiff, plus a week in New York. I’ve also taken an active part in two more shows by appearing onstage as a contestant in a theatrical re-run of Mr and Mrs with husband (so it was really Mr and Mr, we’re pictured above with host Samuel Holmes) and as part of David Bedella and Friends, his monthly chat show at the St James Studio.
Text of the Day: The Encounter
Favourite stage direction: “As the audience enters, it seems there is almost nothing on stage.”
THE ENCOUNTER – Barbican Theatre
Simon McBurney journeys up the Amazon into the heart of darkness and and finds light and enlightenment.
THE ENCOUNTER – Barbican & touring
If there is any theatre artist reliably able to draw you into a world of disorientation, time-slip, near-death and a sense of licking hallucinogenic frogs in a dislocated space-time contiuum and speaking the language of the jaguar, it is Simon McBurney of Complicité. He will mess with your head and shiver your heart.