People have been born into families since people started getting born at all. Playwrights have been trying to write Family Plays for a long time, too. And typically these plays try to answer endlessly complicated questions of blood and duty and inheritance and responsibility. They try to answer the question, «Can things really change?» People have been trying nobly for years and years to have plays solve in two hours what hasn't been solved in many lifetimes. This has to stop. The Open House is an hour and twenty minutes, with no intermission.
So is Robin Hood a real person? Yes and no. What does that mean? He’s a legend… a myth. Define myth, please. A story that has been told so many times it’s impossible to tell if it’s true anymore. A shadow creeps across the courtyard of Nottingham Castle. Someone has been stealing chickens which is a crime punishable by the loss of an ear. The Sheriff of Nottingham and his wolf are lying in wait but tonight they will get more than they bargain for… A tale that’s been told a thousand times – although never quite like this – The Adventures of Robin Hood is a story about heroism and friendship, corruption and murder. There are sword fights, archery competitions, daring rescues and impossible escapes. A wild, anarchic take on an ancient story. Originally commissioned by Visible Fictions and the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC.
Meet Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbours,John and Pony, two suburban couples who have even more in common thantheir identical homes and their shared last names. As their relationships begin to irrevocably intertwine, the Joneses must decidebetween their idyllic fantasies and their imperfect realities. This contemporary comedy explores how our joys and sorrows – and how we choose to face them – can come to define our lives.
M.Rock is a magical new play, inspired by a true story, about the enduring joys of music, dancing and self-discovery. The generation gap just got tighter. In his distinctive language, Philpott charts the fortunes of 18-year-old Tracey and her grandmother Mabel. Tracey has just finished school, she’s bought a round-the-world ticket and is flying away to soak up experiences. By contrast, Mabel is stable. She plays piano for The Players, knits for the African appeal and looks after Hilda’s cat. When Tracey misses her plane home, Mabel sets off on a quest to find her granddaughter. But what she finds is her inner DJ.
‘There is a place in the hippocampus the size of an almond called the amygdale in which is stored our emotional memory. Anything in our history that is a stimulus to our emotions resides there… The kernel of Catherine is there for the picking – I am searching for the correct tool like at Christmas when the nutcrackers have been misplaced. A hammer will shatter it.’ Catherine is in a post-traumatic state and Simon, an eminent psychiatrist, is employed to help her recover her memory in time to give evidence in the trial of Joshua James – a young man accused of raping her. As the date for the trial approaches, Simon becomes absorbed with the workings of his patient's brain, as he grapples with his preconceptions of truth, memory and perspective.
The recession is biting hard so Emily and Oliver have decided to downsize and shift their middle-class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England. They want to live, work and raise their two young children in a friendly community, among what Emily terms ‘real people’, away from the cold anonymity of the city. These left-leaning, well-educated people have invited over two of their new neighbours in an attempt to break the ice. Tonight Alan and Dawn will be offered olives and anchovies and are introduced to Karl Marx and abstract art. As classes and outlooks collide, the scene is set for a rendezvous with consequences as hilarious as they are tragic.
Mediterranean roasted vegetables. Finnish Folk and Margaret Drabble. Adolf Hitler and the knitted cover for a toilet roll. An audience split in two experiencing auditory hallucinations. The new work from acclaimed theatre company Ridiculusmus is inspired by a treatment method for psychosis that has virtually eradicated schizophrenia from Western Lapland. The text is syncopated and harmonised throughout with duets on words and phrases, cooking up a dizzying concoction of memory, delusion and reality that culminates in a unified third act of denouement set between the past and present – the crucial defining moment of the protagonist’s life. It conjures up a comic nightmare of delusion while offering a hopeful world of polyphonic uncertainty, a world where dialogue can transform your life.
In a farmhouse at the edge of Salisbury Plain, a family is falling apart. Stephen can’t afford to put his mother into care; Arthur can’t afford to stop working and look after his wife. When a young stranger with blue hair moves in to care for Edie as her mind unravels, the family are forced to ask: are we living the way we wanted? Visitors takes a haunting, beautiful look at the way our lives slip past us.
Compelling, moving and eloquent, one of the great novels of the 20th century is brought to the stage for the first time. Winner of the 1987 Booker Prize, Dame Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger is a haunting story of loss and desire. Claudia Hampton is a popular historian, a strong, beautiful and difficult woman. Now in her seventies, she is plotting her greatest work – a history of the world. She looks back over her life growing up between the wars and remembers the people who have shared its triumphs and tragedies. There is Gordon, her adored brother; Jasper, the charming, untrustworthy lover and father of her daughter; and Tom, her one great love, both found and lost during the El Alamein campaign when she worked as a war correspondent. Against a background of world events, Claudia’s own remarkable story provokes a sharp combination of sadness, shock and amusement.
‘You won’t be here. Not in thirty years. You’ll have had a stroke, or I’ll have shot you. It’ll be one or the other.’ Three sisters. Three thousand miles from home. Overworked Olga, wild Masha and idealistic Irina dream of returning. Living in a world of deceit, desire and hard drinking it’s difficult but is there something else holding them back? Reinterpreted for the 21st century by Anya Reiss, this is a searing new version of Chekhov’s masterpiece. Press for The Seagull: ‘Fresh, colloquial, sexy and downright perceptive’ The Telegraph ‘in a year of remarkable Chekhov revivals, this Seagull flies with the best’ The Guardian ‘As emotionally honest and heartfelt a production as the author could have hoped’ The Times