Cast: Aoife Duffin, Claudia Grant, Bradley Hall, Oliver Johnstone, Ekow Quartey, Ruby Thomas, Adam Welsh, Daisy Whalley.
Director: Ben Kidd Writer: Frank Wedekind with Anya Reiss Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 100 minutes Start Date: March 7, 2014 End Date: March 22, 2014 In a co-production with Headlong and Nuffield, West Yorkshire Playhouse present a reimagining of Spring Awakening; a daring odyssey into the adolescent world of violence, belief and sexual maturity. Anywa Reiss adapts Frank Wedekind’s controversial first work, now almost a century old, for the modern era. Transposing his story into a society influenced by digital media and social networking, Reiss presents a cross-section of adolescents as they struggle to come to terms with their changing hormones and physical urges. The transition works well, though an insistence on using the original names from the show – such as Melchoir – is a touch anachronistic and somewhat distracting within its modern, British setting. As its title infers, the show opens in the British springtime and establishes playful beginnings. The characters are typical teenagers loitering around parks, sparring and bantering. Directed with a documentary realism and downplayed by a cast acting younger than their years, the ensemble wholly convinces as a collective of hormone-driven teens. Much humour is found in the disparity between the characters’ physical and emotional development, with double acts exchanging crude anecdotes and bravado. Amusing at the outset, the attitudes towards sex soon shift in tone as innocence gives way to ignorance and a bullish confidence, fuelled by the unrealistic expectations which Internet pornography presents. Soon, bravado and flirting gives way to aggression and violence in an increasingly bleak descent into tragedy.
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Cast: Cornelius Booth, Kelsey Brookfield, Heather Christian, Andy Clark, Dyfrig Morris, Simon Holland Roberts, John Trindle, Henry Pettigrew, Johnson Willis.
Director: Mark Rosenblatt Writer: John Steinbeck Theatre: West Yorkshire Playhouse Duration: 120 minutes Steinbeck’s popular novella Of Mice and Men has been boldly adapted for the new season at West Yorkshire Playhouse. A powerful and enduring piece, the show promises to theatrically re-imagine one of the most studied texts in the English Literature curriculum. Of Mice and Men signifies Mark Rosenblatt’s directorial debut as new Associate Director of the Playhouse. His direction has an immediate freshness and innovative simplicity. Act I is primarily played downstage with simple dressings and has a strong studio theatre feel, whilst Act II opens up broader vistas, exploiting the impressive depth of the Quarry Theatre. Rosenblatt’s visualisation, thanks to superb production design by Max Jones, expands in scale and story, partnered with the dramatic tensions of the play. A cloud-like spectacle of tungsten bulbs glow and ebb throughout the piece, counterpointing anxieties, whilst simply animated vistas – including a lazily turning windmill – provide a cinematic patina on stage. |
A Night at
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