The Cherry Orchard lays bare, in elegiac tones, the passing of the old, entrenched aristocratic order and the emergence of the new at the expense of the old.
plays
One of the strengths of this piece of thoughtful social melodrama is that, by the end, any credibility stretched by the child-mob scenario is less important than the way we are moved to analyse our own response to one manifestation of historic institutionalised British child abuse.
Just as Keats’ elliptic “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” is comprehensible in context, the meaning of Che Walker’s “Time is Love/Tiempo es Amor” is made apparent by this superbly acted and eloquent 90 minutes of drama.
This piece of theatre is inspired by La Maladie de la Mort, Marguerite Duras’ 1982 novella. The original text explored a homosexual’s purchase of a woman in a vain search for love.
Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt defied theatre’s limitations with a vast cast, sprawling action and special effects.
Under Stewart Laing’s inspired direction, four permanently-glowing screens help to convey the bigoted characters of a charmless northern French village, where violence, shame, pride, racism and homophobia form the fabric of society.
In our blasé age, we may take for granted that a remote Yorkshire parsonage managed to produce three sisters who defied rigid Victorian convention to give voice to raw passions and sexual frustration no respectable woman was meant to feel.
This play is a picaresque adventure describing the life of Emilia Bassano Lanier. Emilia, born in 1569, was a direct contemporary of Shakespeare, and perhaps the inspiration of his Dark Lady of the Sonnets.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses comprise nearly 12,000 lines and over 250 myths that have inspired more modern writers as great as Shakespeare and Dante.
This is Shakespeare light. Very light. Antic Disposition’s presentation of Shakespeare’s 1598 comedy is aimed at touring in South West France during the summer months when Paris empties and the French take to the countryside.
Writer, philosopher and English aristocrat Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was way ahead of her time and she knew it, writing: “I regard not so much the present but future ages”.
As a half French, half American individual, I give in to a pastime common to double nationals, which consists of regularly comparing both countries of origin.
By Stephanie Sears • art, authors, books, drawing, fiction, film, literature, music, painting, playwrights, sculpture, society, theatre, writing, year 2019 • Tags: art, authors, books, drawing, fiction, film, history, literature, music, painting, playwrights, sculpture, society, Stephanie V Sears, theatre, writing