REVIEW: Signal to Noise
Reading Time: 2 minutesForced Entertainment’s Signal to Noise is a perfectly baffling wash of delightful creative absurdity
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REVIEW: Gigi and Dar
Reading Time: 2 minutesGigi and Dar are soldiers stationed at a checkpoint in an undisclosed location. They look like soldiers; they have the uniform, the scary big guns, the radios, binoculars. Their job is to sit and look out for anyone approaching the checkpoint.
REVIEW: Chicos Mambo: TUTU
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe dance world has a propensity to take itself perhaps a little too seriously. A typically stoic art form, whether it be ballet, contemporary, modern, or Graham, we revel in the sombre beauty of dance. While musical theatre itself succeeds in drawing out the joyful silliness of dance, through tap, Fosse, and so forth, more classical styles still find themselves wary of humour. TUTU arrives to turn this notion on its head.
REVIEW: Dani’s Inferno
Reading Time: 2 minutesDani’s Inferno is a brilliant, funny, and intoxicating one-woman production by Charlotte Eyres that deftly explores the complex nuance of the climate crises and the overwhelming number of climate deniers that exist within seemingly liberal, young communities.
REVIEW: La bohème
Reading Time: 2 minutesRalph and Mark are two struggling artists in modern-day London. They complain about Suella Braverman, the freezing temperatures due to their broken boiler (which the landlord will only fix once they have paid their rent), and faulty Amazon purchases. Ralph writes plays, Mark designs them
REVIEW: Ghar Ghar
Reading Time: 2 minutesGhar Ghar expertly explores the tumult of returning home when you have lived overseas for a significant period of time.
REVIEW: Knapsack
Reading Time: 2 minutesBenedict Esdale does it all in this entertaining 50-minute piece. He portrays a plethora of characters and serves as the production's primary narrative driving force. The play opens with a whirlwind of characters, Esdale switching between them with impressive speed. While at first it seems impossible to keep track of who-is-who, Esdale's immensely specific and distinct character choices make the characters quickly fall into a logical cerebral order. It becomes easy to follow the piece’s narrative despite one person playing every single character. In many one-man productions, productions generally stick to a small number of characters for the sole performer to switch in between. Knapsack flies in the face of this generality, creating a play that hosts a myriad of complex people that fill the life of the piece’s protagonist.
REVIEW: YaYa As… The Wise Men of Chelm
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Wise Men of Chelm is a set of stories particularly familiar to those of Ashkenazi Jewish origin. These tell the tale of foolish men who live in an imaginary city called Chelm.
REVIEW: Utoya
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn Utoya, playwright Edoardo Erba depicts the experiences of those on the outskirts of the attack who, despite their physical distance, were distinctly impacted by the attack, as all in Norway were.
REVIEW: Two Come Home
Reading Time: 2 minutesEvan lives in a small town somewhere in the United States. He works hard, with three jobs and a part-time gig singing covers at the local bar. His dad is incarcerated, much to Evan’s relief, and Evan himself was recently released from prison. In many ways, his life is looking up: he has a house of his own, left to him by his uncle, a steady income, distance from his prior addiction issues, but he is lonely. He aches for someone. His penance, he says, for the terrible thing he has done, is to spend his days alone, missing him.