The Boy Who Bit Picasso: art and fun at York Theatre Royal Studio today and tomorrow. Picture: Geraint Lewis
WHEN Picasso comes to stay, anything can happen at York Theatre Royal Studio today and tomorrow.
Untied Artists invite four year olds and upwards to “come and play down on the farm with Tony and Picasso”.
“We’ll
have loads of fun, make crazy pictures and tell the true story of how a young
boy became friends with one of the greatest artists who ever lived,” they say.
The Boy Who Bit Picasso is an interactive piece of theatre with storytelling, music and chances to make your own art – whether mask-making, collages or drawings – in a hands-on, humorous family show that introduces the influential 20th-century Spanish artist through the eyes of a young boy.
Inspired
by Antony Penrose’s book of the true story of how a boy became friends with
Pablo Picasso, Untied Artists’ show is directed by Jake Oldershaw and
originally was co-produced with Oxford Playhouse.
Tickets for today and tomorrow’s 11am and 2pm performances are on sale on 01904 623568, at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk in person from the Theatre Royal box office.
Joanne Theaker as M’Lynn in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias. All pictures: Kirkpatrick Photography
REVIEW: Steel Magnolias, York Stage, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorkstagemusicals.com
NOTE the shedding of “Musicals” from the York Stage name for this Nik Briggs production, although music from the Eighties still blares out from the radio at Truvy’s Beauty Spot, whenever it is tapped.
Girls Just Want To Have Fun, sings Cyndi Lauper, and the girls on stage want to have fun too, but the cycle of life has a habit of getting in the way.
Indeed just such a spanner in the works led to Louisiana playwright Robert Harling writing Steel Magnolias in 1987 as therapy after losing his sister to diabetes.
Louise Henry as Shelby in Steel Magnolias
Once billed as “the funniest play ever to make you cry”, it takes the form of a bittersweet but sentimental comedy drama, delivered by an all-female cast.
Briggs assembles a fine array of York talent, all of whom have excelled in musicals previously and are now showing off their acting chops to the max, without recourse to the heightened dramatics of song.
Briggs and set builder Geoff Theaker have gone for a traverse stage design, a configuration that is under-utilised in theatre, but makes you aware of the audience reactions on the opposite side, and also has a way of intensifying drama in a story of triumph and tragedy, dyeing and dying.
Steel Magnolias’ setting is a bustling Louisiana hair salon, run by the ever-comforting Truvy (Kathryn Addison) in a converted garage, home to her little rural Southern town’s most successful shop for 15 years.
Julie Ann Smith as Ouiser in Steel Magnolias
Pictures of the Eighties’ American hairstyles du jour are omnipresent, raising a smile of familiarity that is repeated with the assortment of hair-dos favoured by the women we meet. Bunting criss-crosses the salon, while magnolias tumble down the walls.
Significantly, men are never seen – and there were only four among the first-night full house – but they are often disparaged in conversation, one of the sources of humour in Harling’s script. What’s more, they are represented by the loud, intrusive blasts of a bird-scaring gun and the barking of big dogs. Enough said!
If the men are but a nuisance, the women seek comfort in each other, and where better to do that than in the haven of a salon as nails are painted and hair teased into pleasing shape.
At the epicentre is Addison’s perennially perky Truvy, whose mantra of “There’s no such thing as natural beauty” is passed on straightaway to quirky new asssistant Annelle (Carly Morton), whose God-fearing demeanour is coupled with mystery over her past.
Carly Morton’s Annelle and Louise Henry’s Shelby in Steel Magnolias
One effervescent, the other quiet, together they must orchestrate the ever-hastening wedding-day preparations of plucky, resolute but physically fragile Shelby (Louise Henry), whose love of fashion and pink in profusion are emblems of her not giving in to diabetes.
She and her mother, the cautious but forceful matriarch M’Lynn (Joanne Theaker), do not have the easiest of relationships but their love is nevertheless unconditional.
The salon’s endless circle of gossip is joined regularly by the wise, good-humoured, football club-owning widow Clairee (a phlegmatic Sandy Nicholson) and the grouchy, erratic loose cannon Ouiser (Julie Ann Smith, with just the right dash of eccentricity).
Briggs’s direction is both well choreographed and well paced, with plenty of movement to counter all that sitting down in salons, as Harling’s tissue-box drama of marriage and motherhood, love and loss unfolds.
The never-easy Southern drawl is mastered by one and all in Briggs’s excellent cast, who are equally strong as an ensemble and in the solo spotlight. Theaker is particularly good, especially when M’Lynn is in the grip of grief, while Henry, last seen as Snow White in her professional debut in the Grand Opera House pantomime, is fast becoming one to watch with an admirable range already at 22.
Carly Morton’s Annelle, left, Sandy Nicholson’s Clairee, Kathryn Addison’s Truvy and Louise Henry’s Shelby in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias
TORRID TIMES: Benedict Turvill as Konstantin and Livy Potter as Nina in The Seagull. Picture: John Saunders
TUMULTUOUS passions and artistic egos collide in York Settlement Community Players’ production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at York Theatre Royal Studio.
The February 26 to March 7 run completes director Helen Wilson’s ten-year project to stage all four of the Russian playwright’s major works in York, after Three Sisters in 2010, The Cherry Orchard in 2015 and Uncle Vanya in 2018.
Chekhov’s 1895 tragicomedy follows
famous Russian actress Arkadina (played by Stephanie Hesp) as she brings her
novelist lover Trigorin (Ben Sawyer) to spend the summer at her brother’s
lakeside estate.
Arkadina’s son Konstantin (Benedict Turvill) is preparing for the premiere of his bold new play starring his girlfriend Nina (Livy Potter). For the assembled audience of family and friends, the play’s first and only performance sets off a series of events that will alter the course of all their lives, forever.
Wilson’s multi-generational cast also features Maurice Crichton as Dr Dorn; Glyn Morrow, Sorin; Paul Joe Osbourne, Shamrayev; Elizabeth Elsworth, Polina; Lucy May Orange, Masha, and Sami Sok, Medvedenko.
Helen says: “Chekhov always wrote for an ensemble cast with wonderful parts for women. The Seagull is no exception. Actors love Chekhov and it’s my mission to bring the public round to him too.
“He is so often misunderstood. The
Seagull is a comedy, as Chekhov describes it, and laughter and tears often
spill over into each other.”
Taking principal roles for Helen for the first time will be Benedict Turvill, 22, last seen in York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust’s A Nativity For York at the Spurriergate Centre in December, and Livy Potter, 26, whose last role was “being blokey” in York Shakespeare Project’s Antony And Cleopatra at Theatre @41 Monkgate last autumn.
Benedict Turvill and Livy Potter: performing for Settlement Players director Helen Wilson for the first time in The Seagull
“Playing Konstantin and his girlfriend Nina, they have such emotional journeys to go on,” says Helen. “They must go from being so in love in Act One to being in abject despair in Act Four. For young actors, The Seagull has everything in it for them.”
Livy says: “The ‘realness’ of the language can sometimes take your breath away. You read it for the first time and then read it again later, after you’ve experienced something, and the humanness of those words is so affecting.”
Benedict says: “When I’ve read Chekhov
in the past, I’ve always thought it was a rather rigid attempt at being
natural, but once it comes off the page, as you rehearse it, it really works.”
“When you get to that point, you can really open your performance to it,” says Livy, who will be performing at the theatre where she works as the marketing and press assistant.
“I’m really looking forward to doing
that, because I’ve seen a lot of plays in that Studio space and I know what
works and what doesn’t and that makes it an exciting prospect to be on that
stage. It’s an awareness of how to use that space that is the key.”
Adapting to that space, Helen says: “I’ve
learnt from the past productions not to have so much on stage, like having a
piano and chaise longue previously. There’ll be a soundscape and lighting, but
what really matters is that the play will be absorbing to watch in such an
intimate space.”
Amid such intimacy, Chekhov’s comedy
will blossom. “There’s such humour in the pretentious characters,” says
Benedict. “Playing a funny character who’s not consciously funny, the audience
will laugh at you, not with you.”
Roll on Wednesday, when The Seagull takes flight until March 7. Tickets for the 7.45pm evening performances and 2pm matinee on February 29 are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Emma Whitelock’s Epiphany, now featuring in the poster for York Settlement Community Players’ production of The Seagull
Did you know?
YORK artist Emma Whitelock has provided
the promotional artwork for the Settlement Players’ production of The Seagull.
Describing her painting Epiphany, Emma
says: “Its lone figure on the shore echoes perfectly Chekhov’s mood of longing
in The Seagull. The piece was inspired by a misty winter sunrise on the
Yorkshire coast and aims to capture a poignant moment; the outer world
reflecting the inner.”
Emma’s artwork explores land, sea and solitude,
her inspiration coming from the
dramatic Yorkshire moors and coast, together with the exceptional light and
vibrancy of Cornish summers.
Artist Emma Whitelock in her studio
Using acrylic with mixed media, she builds
layers that evolve intuitively to create textured, semi-abstract works, marked
by big skies, atmospheric colours and an expressive style. “I aim to transport
the viewer to wild places, resonant with memories or possibilities,” she says.
The next chance to see Emma’s paintings will be
at York Open
Studios 2020 at Venue 43, 11
Trentholme Drive, The Mount, York, on April 18, 19, 25 and 26 from 10am to 5pm,
preceded by a preview evening on April 17.
Denis Conway and Charlotte Emmerson as Otto and Anna Quangel and Joseph Marcell as Inspector Escherich in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Geraint Lewis
JOSEPH Marcell will be in York from March 3, appearing as a Gestapo inspector in the British premiere stage adaptation of Alone In Berlin at the Theatre Royal.
“As a non-white actor, I don’t get to play Nazis, so it’s a terrific boon to be playing Inspector Escherich,” he says, now settled into the second week of performances at the Royal & Derngate, Northampton, York Theatre Royal’s co-producers of Alistair Beaton’s adaptation, directed by James Dacre.
Best known for his six seasons as the dry, sardonic butler in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1996, the St Lucia-born, Peckham-raised Marcell has played Othello in 1984 and King Lear in 2014 in a career that has taken him to the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the West End and Broadway.
Now, as Inspector Escherich, he must track his quarry through ever-narrowing circles of totalitarian hell in Fallada’s story set in Nazi-era Berlin in 1940, where factory foreman Otto Quangel (played by Denis Conway) and his wife Anna (Charlotte Emmerson) join the German Resistance after their son’s death.
Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich with Clive Mendus as Enno Kluge and Jessica Walker as Golden Elsie in a scene from Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Based on true events, Alone In Berlin becomes a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door, as the quietly courageous dissident couple stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime, defying Hitler’s rule with the smallest of acts. Such actions prompt Marcell’s meticulous, methodical Escherich to seek to catch them.
“I hadn’t been aware of the novel beforehand, though I’ve since read it after I landed the role,” says Joseph, 71. “It’s really difficult to get a German perspective on wartime life in a German city in the Second World War, but Fallada presents the story of the working ‘stiff’ who has to survive in Berlin.
“This is a story that’s not told: the story of an ordinary German in the war, when we usually hear of heroes and villains.”
Joseph continues: “People seeing the play so far have been a little surprised that it’s full of domestic drama rather than jackboot marching, but it’s the story of an ordinary man [Otto Quangel] who gets to breaking point, and regardless of what might happen, he has to take a stand.”
“For Escherich, it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Geraint Lewis
Escherich is fighting for his own survival as a policeman who has been made a member of the Gestapo. “Now he’s no longer a policeman, but paramilitary, and you find him almost succumbing to the violence of the Gestapo,” says Joseph of his flawed character.
“He’s the opposite of Otto, who has to stand up for what he believes in, whereas for Escherich it’s not just about survival but the quality of survival.”
Analysing Escherich’s character further, and in particular once he has to work for the Gestapo, Joseph says: “He’s in it, but he’s not of it,” he says. “He’s a survivor, who has integrity, and though he works for the Nazis, he doesn’t realise he’s a Nazi.”
As part of his research for the role of Escherich, Joseph met up with a friend who was a “bigwig” at the Imperial War Museum in London. “He explained to me that detectives who worked for the Gestapo were seen as [the equivalent of] rock stars,” he says.
Joseph Marcell in rehearsal for Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
“But they saw themselves as detectives first, who dealt with facts, and handling facts was something they had been trained to use all their lives, rather than rounding up six chaps and beating them up for information.”
While a sense of impending doom hangs over Alone In Berlin from the first beat, says Joseph, “what makes the story special is that it’s not about kings and queens and admirals, but an ordinary man struggling for survival.
“It makes you ask yourself, ‘would I resist or simply survive?’. ‘What would I have done in that situation?’.”
Who is “alone in Berlin”, Joseph? “They are all alone. In the end, it’s Otto and Anna who are alone, but the inspector is alone too. He has no interaction with ordinary people, except in trying to solve a ‘crime’. They must each take their individual journey,” he says.
Joseph Marcell’s Inspector Escherich interrogating Denis Conway’s Otto Quangel in Alone In Berlin. Picture: Manuel Harlan
Joseph, who was raised in Peckham, South London, from the age of nine, and trained initially to be an electrical engineer, has played a multitude of roles in a distinguished career. One so distinguished that he has been made a cultural ambassador of St Lucia, his Caribbean homeland, and he sits on the American board for Shakespeare’s Globe.
“All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear [in King Lear for Shakespeare’s Globe in 2014],” he says. “The wonderful thing about Lear is that it’s the story of king who degenerates into a state of hopelessness but then re-emerges, essaying on the nature of kingship.
“After two years of playing Lear, I was exhausted, but with age and exhaustion comes the knowledge that though you seek perfection, there’s no chance of it. Each role requires an honesty, a dedication, whether it’s Hamlet, Othello or Lear.”
Recalling his six years starring with a young Will Smith in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air in the 1990s, Joseph says: “The most important thing at that time was being a highly successful television star. I couldn’t go to an event without NBC having a word about what I could say, what I should wear, so it’s a completely different process.
Joseph Marcell in the role of Geoffrey Butler, the butler, in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
“I was employed to play a role and people say I played it successfully – and nothing succeeds like success in America.
“I didn’t go to ‘butler school’, but I did speak to someone in Britain and two in Los Angeles about what being a butler entailed. The role was written by satirists from the New Yorker magazine and it was up to me to make it truthful.”
Truthfulness in a role is always important to Joseph, as is the never-ending pursuit of perfection. “After a hit role like Geoffrey Butler, in many cases actors might retire and live on their hard-earned gains, but I am an actor and I want to act and I want to do it perfectly, and that’s what I want to continue to do,” he says.
“That TV role has afforded me choice and I have to say I do what I want to do and I’ve been lucky enough that people think I can do it. That’s why I get to make three films and do four stage roles each year.”
” All the roles you play have to be distinctive, whether Inspector Escherich or Lear ,” says Joseph Marcell. Picture: Manuel Harlan
On Monday this week, Joseph was taken to lunch at Claridge’s, in Mayfair, to discuss an upcoming movie role. “I’m going to be in my first Western, Trees In Texas, a film with a lot of African-American history in it,” he reveals.
“I’ve finished a film made in Mexico, an Hispanic production called The Exorcism Of God, directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, and there’s a BBC piece I might be doing, playing an exorcist.”
As for the stage, he has one Shakespearean role he would still love to play: Prospero, the protagonist with magical powers in The Tempest. That will surely come his way.
York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate, Northampton, present Alone In Berlin, York Theatre Royal, March 3 to 21. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan
Agnew presents his solo show, An Evening With Aggers, at York Theatre Royal on April
16.
The voice of summer on Test Match
Special, Agnew, 59, is a key figure in the world of cricket, both as a former
Leicestershire and England fast bowler and as a commentator on the game.
Last summer, he commentated
on England’s World Cup victory in the most breath-taking 50-plus-one overs
match of all time, followed by one of the most dramatic Test Match victories
ever witnessed, at Headingley, Leeds, when Ben Stokes took on the Australians.
Now broadcaster Aggers will be regaling
audiences with some of his special memories and amusing
anecdotes.
Agnew learnt his craft under the tutelage of Brian Johnston,
emerging from the notoriety of the gloriously funny “leg over” incident
(yes, you will hear that on the night) to become BBC Radio’s voice of
cricket .
Agnew’s solo show takes the audience on
a trip down memory lane, waxing lyrical about his extensive and entertaining
career on the cricket pitch, as well as his many years on TV screens
and radio stations around the world.
He also recalls encounters on his A
View From The Boundary feature on Test Match Special, forwhich
he has interviewed many a star of stage, screen and elsewhere,
including two prime ministers, several rock stars, film
legends, writers, comedians and a boy wizard.
Producer Simon Fielder says: “An Evening With Aggers will appeal to
cricket fans and non-lovers of the game alike. You don’t have to be
into the sport to enjoy the stories and humour. Aggers’s shows are
always funny, charming and moving. They capture the essence of TMS,
which has been a national institution for the past 60 years.”
As Aggers says: “It‘s not just cricket commentary, but friendly company
for people at home, in the car, on the beach and even tucked up in
bed.”
Audience members will have an opportunity to tweet Agnew on the
night with questions and maybe even meet his beloved dog Tino.
The 7.30pm show will raise money for the Professional Cricketers’
Trust (PCT) and York Theatre Royal’s work in the community. Tickets cost £20 on 01904 623568
or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
YORK Theatre Royal’s Community Drive
scheme is back on the road.
Under the scheme, older people – a group
that can be at risk of isolation – can enjoy a trip to the theatre, and as many
as 100 people will receive tickets and transport to matinee performances of
Northern Broadsides’ play Quality Street in June.
Maisie Pearson, the Theatre Royal’s development
and communications assistant, said: “A meaningful activity like attending a
show can help people overcome isolation and reconnect with their community,
something which is particularly important for our older audiences.”
The first Community Drive during Driving
Miss Daisy last June brought 51 older people from York to the Theatre Royal. Otherwise
unable to visit the theatre, they had a memorable afternoon, talking to staff
about past visits to the St Leonard’s Place theatre, enjoying the show and
taking away a programme as a memento of their visit.
The Theatre Royal worked with a taxi
company to transport Community Drive participants to and from the theatre and
also partnered with Age UK York to bring a group from their Thursday Club. For
some, this was the first time in years they had returned to the theatre.
Maurey Richards and Paula Wilcox in Driving Miss Daisy at York Theatre Royal last June. Picture: Sam Taylor
A Thursday Club member said: “It’s
a really lovely thing to be able to come to the theatre and feel part of
something… the community of the theatre. It’s so kind to have something done
for older people – to be remembered.”
For Quality Street, the Theatre Royal
is working with charities that support older people to offer tickets and
transport to see Laurie Sansom’s production of J M Barrie’s play at 1.30pm on
June 11 or 2.30pm on June 13.
Tickets and transport can be requested
as part of a community group, such as a charity, care provider or day centre.
To book tickets and discuss any transportation needs, charity/group organisers or
individuals should call Maisie Pearson on 01904 550148 or email maisie.pearson@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
“We’d like to thank everyone who has
supported us by donating to York Theatre Royal,” said Maisie. “Thank you for
enabling us to offer invaluable opportunities like the Community Drive.”
Family portrait: Bryan Bounds as Martin Gray, Will Fealy as his son Billy and Susannah Baines as his wife Stevie in Pick Me Up Theatre’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre are staging next week’s northern UK premiere of Edward Albee’s emotional, if controversial, rollercoaster of an American play, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?.
New York architect Martin Gray has it all as he turns 50: fame, fortune, a happy marriage to Stevie, and a wonderful, gay teenage son, Billy, but he is hiding a BIG secret. Everything changes when he admits to his best friend, Ross, that he is having an affair with…a goat.
The Goat caused a stir but nevertheless was a hit with audiences when it opened on Broadway in 2002, winning the Tony Award for Best Play 40 years after Albee took home the same prize for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Playing at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, The Goatswitches between comedy and full-blown tragedy as Stevie, Billy and Ross struggle to deal with Martin’s revelation.
“The play is about love and loss, the limits of our tolerance and who, indeed, we really are,” explained Virginia-born playwright Albee, who died in September 2016. “All I ask of an audience is that they leave their prejudices in the cloakroom … and later — at home — imagine themselves as being in the predicament the play examines and coming up with useful, if not necessarily comfortable, responses.”
Bryan Bounds, left, Mick Liversidge and Will Fealy in rehearsal for The Goat
Directed by Mark Hird and produced and designed by Robert Readman, Pick Me Up’s production casts American actor and tutor Bryan Bounds as Martin; Susannah Baines as Stevie; Mick Liversidge as Ross and Will Fealy, a student at CAPA College, the creative and performing arts college in Wakefield, as Billy.
Bryan Bounds, who runs the American School of Acting at Westcliffe Hall, off Cold Bath Road, in Harrogate, suggested The Goat to Mark, having first met him when his son Frankie played Pugsley in Pick Me Up’s production of The Addams Family at the Grand Opera House, York, in October 2015.
“I saw the original Broadway production in 2003 at The Booth Theatre with Sally Field and Bill Irwin leading the cast,” he recalls. “Like a lot of people, I was stunned, and afterwards I sat cogitating with an old chap, and we both said, ‘yes, it’s entirely possible that you could fall in love with goats’, but actually this play is nothing to do with goats.
“Albee’s work is all about using theatre to elevate the consciousness of the audience. He says, ‘never leave the audience the same way you found them’. This play really stays with you and you start to think more about intolerance. But the less the audience know before going, the better for having an impact on them.”
Bryan had been sitting on suggesting The Goat to Pick Me Up, “but
then I saw Susannah [Baines] in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies and thought she’d be
perfect for Stevie because you need a very strong actor for that role,” he says.
“It will make you change how you think about everything, all in 90 minutes,” says Bryan Bounds, left, of Edward Albee’s play
“I asked Mark if he would like to direct it, and once he said ‘yes’, he suggested Mick Liversidge to play Ross, and I suggested Will Fealy for Billy. Will lives in Ossett and has been one of my students; he’s very talented and he’s just been offered an unconditional place at ArtsEd in London after he finishes at CAPA College.”
It was not a straightforward decision that Mark would direct The Goat. “When Bryan asked me, initially I sent a holding message saying I’d just agreed to direct Monster Makers, though I’m a reluctant director as acting is my passion,” he recalls.
“But then I read Albee’s play and thought, ‘oh my god, I have to do this’. I could see what Bryan could see in it.”
Playing Martin’s wife Stevie will be a “totally different direction” for Susannah. “I’m usually a bit more jazz hands; I rarely do straight plays; The Pitmen Painters in 2015 was the last one,” she says.
“Then I read the play without reading anything about it, and the
impact of its fallout is quite extraordinary and scary for all four of them.
You start with this happy, rich successful family who seem to have it all, but
one bombshell changes it all.”
Mick Liversidge, back left, Bryan Bounds, Susannah Baines and Will Fealy: Mark Hird’s cast for The Goat
Susannah adds: “I wouldn’t have done this play if Mark wasn’t directing
it, because he does everything with such care, such detailed research, and then
works so collaboratively in the rehearsal room.”
Bryan has enjoyed the rehearsal process with Mark. “The first
time we met up, he sat us down and we spent an hour just talking about the
characters; who they are; what do they each want? That’s the luxury of how he
works. Detail,” he says.
“I just believe we’re there to tell Albee’s story, and with Mark’s
huge amount of research, we will tell this huge emotive story, not just do a
play. I love the idea that it’s not all set in stone, so it will be different
every night because the audience’s responses will change every night.”
Mark says: “The audience don’t need to see the research. It’s the result that counts. At first, audiences would swear they’re watching a situation comedy that’s very funny, but as the play goes on, what they’re watching is a situation tragedy.
“Albee gave the printed edition of the play a subtitle: Notes
Towards A Definition Of Tragedy, but there’s not just a flow from comedy to
tragedy with the consequences of a tragic flaw leading to a fall from a great
height.
“Instead, there’ll be one line that has you in fits of laughter
and then suddenly you choke on that laugh because of the line that comes next.
It’s so well constructed and that’s what Albee is so good at.”
Mick Liversidge’s Ross confronts Bryan Bounds’ Martin in rehearsal for The Goat
Mark adds: “When you’re faced with moral ambiguities in a play, as with Greek tragedies, it makes you think about yourself and about society around you, and that’s what makes Albee’s play a modern version of a Greek tragedy.”
Bryan rejoins: “Albee wrote the play because he wanted audiences
to conceive the inconceivable. Originally it was going to be about a man
falling in love with another man, but then he thought, ‘No, I need to polarise
people’s response to it’.
“I have the feeling it will be the most disturbing play people will ever have seen at 41 Monkgate.”
Albee once said, “if you think this play is about bestiality, you’re either an idiot or a Republican”. Mark says: “He also said, it’s no more about bestiality than it’s about flower arranging’ and both are in the play!”
Why should you see The Goat? “It’s a play that will make you laugh, shock you, and maybe even make you cry,” says Susannah. “It’s the most outrageously funny tragedy you could ever see, and above all it will make you think.”
Bryan concludes: “It will make you change how you think about everything,
all in 90 minutes.”
Mark has the last word. “It will make you think about your
relationships; how you treat your family, as Albee portrays relationships in a
way that has a real impact on audiences.
“If you like theatre that’s entertaining and sends you home
changed and thinking about some big themes, this is one of those nights for
you.”
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, runs at the John Cooper Studio,
Theatre @41Monkgate, York, from February 25 to 29, 7.30pm nightly. Box office:
01904 623568 or at pickmeuptheatre.com. Please note: this play contains adult
themes and strong language; suggested minimum age of 15.
Adam Martyn in rehearsal for his role as Nicholas Saunderson in No Horizon
RIGHT Hand Theatre’s No Horizon, a musical
about a Yorkshire science and maths genius, is on the horizon at York Theatre
Royal.
Staged at 7.30pm on April 9 and 2.30pm and 7.30pm on April 11 – there will be no performance on Good Friday – the show is inspired by the life of Nicholas Saunderson, a blind scientist and mathematician from Thurlstone, West Riding, who overcame impossible odds to become a Cambridge professor and friend of royalty.
Often described as an 18th
century Stephen Hawking, Saunderson was born on January 20 1682, losing his
sight through smallpox when around a year old. This did not prevent him,
however, from acquiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek and studying
mathematics.
As a child, he learnt to read by tracing the engravings on tombstones around St John the Baptist Church in Penistone, near Barnsley, with his fingers.
No Horizon premiered at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, going on to draw an enthusiastic response from BBC Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans, who called it a “Yorkshire Les Mis”.
Now, the musical has been adapted for a 2020 northern tour by Right Hand Theatre, a company passionate about diversity and inclusivity within theatre. The cast has a 50/50 male/female balance, delivering the show in a gender-blind way with a female Isaac Newton, for example. Both the director and lead actor are visually impaired.
The role of Saunderson is played by the
partially sighted Adam Martyn, from Doncaster, who trained at Liverpool
Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). The female lead role of Abigail goes to Yorkshire
born-and-bred, Rose Bruford College-trained Larissa Teale.
The cast is completed by Tom Vercnocke
as Joshua Dunn; Louise Willoughby as Anne Saunderson; Matthew Bugg as John
Saunderson; Ruarí Kelsey as Reverend Fox; Katie Donoghue and Olivia Smith as
Company.
The musical will be staged with a fresh
look by director Andrew Loretto; vocal coach Sally Egan; movement directors
Lucy Cullingford and Maria Clarke; costume designer Lydia Denno; costume maker
Sophie Roberts; lighting designer David Phillips and tour musical director
David Osmond.
No Horizon’s 2020 northern tour is funded by Arts
Council England and Foyle Foundation, co-commissioned by Cast, Doncaster and
The Civic, Barnsley, and supported by Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind.
Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; April 9’s performance will be audio described, a Q&A will follow that night’s show.
Deluxe dancers: Ballet Boyz on tour with a new show in the spring
BALLETBOYZ are celebrating their 20th
anniversary with a spring tour of Deluxe, visiting the Grand Opera House, York,
on April 28.
This new show fuses beautiful dance
with original music, including collaborations from “some of the world’s most
inventive and thought-provoking choreographers and composers”, in a
co-production with Sadler’s Wells.
Shanghai
dancer and choreographer Xie Xin, artistic director of Xiexin Dance
Theatre, will make her British debut choreographing a new piece set to an
original electronic score by Jiang Shaofeng.
Punchdrunk
associate director Maxine Doyle will present work to live jazz music by
composer Cassie Kinoshi, of the Mercury Prize-nominated SEED Ensemble.
BalletBoyz artistic directors Michael
Nunn and William Trevitt say: “Deluxe is going to be a night of entertaining
and thought-provoking theatre that’s been 20 years in the making. The beauty of
our job has always been about finding and pursuing extraordinary talent and
sharing that with as many people as we can. It’s that simple.”
Over the past 20 years. BalletBoyz have
made 38 pieces of new work for the stage, won 13 international awards and
collaborated with 25 choreographers, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan, Kristen
McNally, Matthew Bourne and Liv Lorent among them.
In the BalletBoyz line-up will be Joseph
Barton, Benjamin Knapper, Harry Price, Liam Riddick, Matthew Sandiford, Will
Thompson and apprentice Dan
Baines.
Looking ahead, in the autumn BalletBoyz
will undertake a new digital project in the wake of their award-winning dance
films Young Men and Romeo And Juliet.
Tickets for April 28’s 7.30pm show are on sale at £13 upwards on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Gerry Grant making one of the pots for smashing at Fangfoss Pottery
IT sounds potty,
but Fangfoss potter Gerry Grant is making pots expressly to be broken.
“I’ve just landed
my most unusual job yet,” he says. “I’ve been commissioned by York company Pick
Me Up Theatre to make some props for next week’s production of The Goat, or Who
Is Sylvia?.
“What’s so unusual
about this request is that they’ve asked me to make a selection of very
large pots that will be smashed to pieces on the stage.”
These pots are made for breaking: Gerry Grant with the pottery that Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast will pick up to smash at next week’s performances
Presented by Pick Me
Up at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from February 25 to
29, Edward Albee’s American play centres around Martin Gray, a successful,
middle-aged architect who has just turned 50 and leads an ostensibly ideal life
with his loving wife, Stevie, and gay teenage son, Billy.
However, when he
confides to his best friend that he also is in love with a goat named Sylvia, he
sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in
tatters.
Albee’s domestic drama ponders the limits of an ostensibly
liberal society, showing a family in crisis to challenge audience members to question
their own moral judgment of social taboos.
The Goat cast members Bryan Bounds, Will Fealy and Susannah Baines
Director Mark Hird says: “The pottery plates, vases and bowls are an
integral part of the show. They represent wealth, prosperity and order in a
seemingly perfect household.
“They are expensive works of art collected by world-famous architect
Martin Gray to furnish the living room of the family’s New York home – and
they’re smashed when Stevie confronts Martin after discovering his affair with
Sylvia, the goat.”
Gerry has run Fangfoss Pottery for 43 years with wife Lyn Grant at The
Old School, Fangfoss, near York, and never before has he received such a destructive
commission.
“The pots have been specially made and fired to break easily,” says potter Gerry Grant. “I do hope they perform the task well”
“I’ve tried for more than 40 years to produce pots that are sturdy and
not easily broken. Now I’ve been asked to do the opposite! The pots have been
specially made and fired to break easily. I do hope they perform the task well.”
The Goat caused controversy but was a big hit – much like the pottery
breaking – with Broadway audiences when it opened in 2002. So much so, it won
the Tony Award for best play, 40 years after writer Albee won the same prize
for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.
Next week marks its York premiere, when Gerry will witness his pots
being broken on the 41 Monkgate stage. “I’m looking forward to seeing the play,”
he says. “I’m sure it will be a smashing production”.
Tickets for the 7.30pm performances are on sale at pickmeuptheatre.com and on 01904 623568.
