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Posts Tagged ‘Iphigenia in Splott’

Romeo & Julie

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I can’t remember the last time I was so emotionally engaged in a play. It isn’t a reworking of Shakespeare’s play, it’s a modern love story – moving, tragic and beautiful. Simply staged, with stunning performances, I adored every minute of it.

Romeo is a single dad from Splott, a working class area of Cardiff. He got a girl pregnant on a one-night stand which she at first decided to terminate but then changed her mind. After the birth she didn’t want the child, so Romeo is left, literally, holding the baby. His alcoholic mother tries to get him to put her in care and when she fails refuses to play a part in her granddaughter’s upbringing. He’s on his own, but he’s a loving dad.

There’s a chance meeting with Julie in the library. He’s killing time and she’s trying to study. She’s destined to read Physics at Cambridge, spurred on by her dad and step-mother who live nearby, but in a better part of town. Their relationship develops and history repeats itself, which results in a period of agony for them both as they weigh up their options. Julie’s parents won’t support her, Romeo’s mother is incapable of support though they do take refuge with her. Not only are they in love with one another, but both with Romeo’s daughter.

Playwright Gary Owen showed he had an affinity with stories like these in three previous plays in the last eight years – Violence and Son, Killology and Iphigenia in Splott. He has an ear for the dialogue of such characters – authentic and sparkling with humour, accompanied by sincere emotionality and pathos. You can’t fail to have empathy with all of these people, not just the lovers. There is a sense of both hope and hopelessness. I was captivated by it.

All five performances are pitch perfect. Callum Scott Howells invests Romeo with a nervous energy, physicality and vulnerability that is extraordinary. Rosie Sheehy brings the intelligence and logic of a budding scientist to Julie, but also her profound love for Romeo and his daughter Neve. Catrin Aaron as Romeo’s mum Barb shows the scars of being a single mum, her support for her son tempered by realism. Paul Brennen as Julie’s dad Col conveys the desperation he has for her to realise her potential and frustration with anything that might get in her way. Anita Reynolds as step-mum Kath shares these, but in a more detached way. Rachel O’Riordan has directed two of the other three Owen plays I’ve seen and she clearly has a strong connection with the material.

It’s great to see the NT hosting and co-producing the best of regional theatre, with Sheffield’s Standing at the Sky’s Edge in the Olivier next door, and this really is the best. Don’t miss this little gem.

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Edinburgh Festivals 2015

Posted in Art, Contemporary Music, Dance, Opera, Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I missed last year and curtailed the year before, so this is my first full week in Edinburgh for three years, which may be why I enjoyed it so much. It seemed like a vintage year, with an extraordinarily high 70% hit rate of great shows and only two bummers out of 26.

The seemingly insatiable supply of monologues continued, with seven of the 13 plays falling into this category. Despite my ambivalence, even dislike, of them, there were some real crackers, led by Sherman Cymru’s Iphigenia in Splott, an extraordinary take on Greek Tragedy with a stunning performance by Sophie Melville. Canadian genius Robert Lepage was back with another of his imaginative, innovative solo shows, this time 887 blended memories of his youth with material about memory itself. Comedian Mark Steel‘s show was, like Mark Thomas’ wonderful Bravo Figaro a few years back, a biographical story – in this case how he found out about his real parents. It was moving, poignant and very very funny. The fourth 5-star show was another flight of imagination, this time The Anomotion Show with percussionist Evelyn Glennie playing in the 17th century courtyard of George Heriot School whilst the live painting of Maria Rud was projected onto its walls. Brilliant. The final day produced not one but two gems, starting with Duncan McMillan’s extraordinarily engaging and captivating one-man play about depression, Every Brilliant Thing, brilliantly performed by Jonny Donahue, which I’ve been trying to catch for some time. Our one and only opera ended the trip with the most inventive and original Die Zauberflote from Komische Oper Berlin in collaboration with our own theatre genius’ 1927. Animation, performance and music in complete harmony.

The Traverse continued its trailblazing, hosting the National Theatre of Scotland’s Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, a rude and hugely funny play with music that followed convent school girls on a school outing (bender) to a singing competition in Edinburgh, with six very talented young actresses and a female band, directed and designed by women! and Vanishing Point’s outstanding, creative take on dementia, Tomorrow. They also hosted young Belgian company Ontroerend Goed’s latest unsettling piece, A Game of You, where I was observed, interviewed and imitated before observing myself, and leaving with a DVD of my experience! Their other two shows fared less well, with Christians, a debate about hell, hard for a non-believer to engage with (though superbly staged and performed, with a 24-piece choir) and another monologue, Crash, which was clever but didn’t captivate like some of the others.

Musical high’s included Lennon: Through A Glass Onion, which showcased his songs – sung and played by a duo – interspersed with quotes from the man himself, Antonio Forcione (again!) with his brilliant Brazilian percussionist Adriano Adewale, hugely enthusiastic five-piece accapella group Simply Soweto and Hackney Colliery Band, who weren’t at all what I was expecting (a brass band!) but whose rhythmic jazz funk was infectious late-night fun. Musical Theatre featured, with enterprising amateur productions of The Addams Family and Sunshine on Leith, neither of which have yet had London outings though both deserve them.

More solo turns, with Jim Cartwright’s Raz, about preparing for, and going out on, a night out, performed brilliantly by the playwright’s son James, contrasting with stand-up comedian Mark Watson‘s highly strung but hysterical Work In Progress. Then there was 10x10x10 where ten comedians did ten monologues written by ten other comedians – except  there were only six, as they split it into two shows, and I can’t tell you who wrote or performed them, except Jo Caulfield who did one. Not bad, though. The big disappointment was Tony’s Last Tape, where an interesting life was made deadly dull.

Other Welsh contributions included Ghost Dance, a highly creative piece of physical theatre but with a confusing narrative comparing a native American plight with a Welsh one. There was innovative use of a smart phone app for English dialogue and subtitles and more polystyrene than you’ve ever seen in one place. Not a lot to say about a rather amateur take on (part of) the folk tale The Mabinogion, except to say I blame Judith!

The Missing Hancock’s featured two lost scripts staged as if they were being recorded for radio, with occasional ad libs, by an exceptional cast. I’d enjoyed them on the radio and I enjoyed them live too. Favourite playwright Jack Thorne’s sexually explicit, harrowing but brilliant play The Solid Life of Sugar Water was another theatrical highlight with two fine performances and, unusually on the fringe outside the Traverse, a great design. Finally, a novel immersive staging of a rare Tennessee Williams play, Confessional, where you are in a seaside bar with the dysfunctional characters partaking of a beer or two with them. Not a great play, but inventively staged.

The usual diversity with higher quality this year. No doubt some will appear elsewhere, so now you know what to catch.

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