Precocious and formidably talented' ( The New Yorker ), Noah Haidle is now considered 'one of the most foremost playwrights of his generation' ( The Boston Globe ). This collection celebrates the arrival of Haidle's virtuosic theatrical talent by bringing together three of his most acclaimed plays to date. Rag and Bone , in which two brothers run an under-the-counter business in human hearts and emotions – 'delightful moments of absurdity' ( The New York Times ) Mr Marmalade , in which four-year-old Lucy delivers a crash-course in contemporary relationships, 'alternately hilarious and heartbreaking' ( The New Yorker ) and Vigils, 'a simple, sweet exploration of human memory and grief' (Variety)
Susan’s Breasts ‘Gems’s piece is a bitter dissection of the heroin generation, where bright young things attempt to maintain their rigid codes of personal freedom and loveless sex … Sparky, sexy, sterile Susan is the object of Gems’s despair, and the object of desire for her predatory he-admirers – a loutish intellectual, a wise-cracking, good-time restaurateur, and a fi lm-maker with acute semiotics-disease. It is only the old-fashioned romantic love professed by Lemon, a Romeo-cum-seer, which makes the eponymous breasts swell with maternity. Sharply observed and often carrying a charge of rich comic irony.’ – Time Out Naked Robots ‘An extremely well-written evocation of life in the style-conscious world of popular music.’ – The Sunday Times The Paranormalist ‘The climax of The Paranormalist has Denholm Elliott in spotlit levitation above a bickering family in a suburban living room. Dishevelled in baggy cardy and slippers, Elliott gives an affectionate and authoritative portrayal as an English eccentric. It’s a brilliant performance in an exhilarating new play which interweaves drawing-room farce with a witty use of the paranormal.’ – Ann McFerran, Time Out
The sun has set over streets of houses, government buildings and American backyards everywhere. The world is dark. A news team is on the scene. Their report: someone left the lawn sprinklers on; someone’s horse is loose; a seashell is lying in the grass; dogs run by. The Governor issues excited statements appealing for calm. It is night-time in the world. Everyone’s afraid. Everyone doesn’t know if the sun, once down, will ever rise again. But there is a witness, and the witness will speak.
THE FLU SEASON No one in the middle of being in love ever sat down to write a love story. It’s only after the belongings are sorted and the shirts returned that the pencils are sharpened and the notebooks opened. So, in a serious way, love stories are never love stories. Love is their inspiration, yes, but the end of love is the reason for their existence. This is a problem. It proposes antijourneys where we saw only journeys, directs things toward a new negative we hadn’t intended. The Flu Season tries to be a love story, anyway. It has a strategy. The play revels in ambivalence, lives in fi ts and starts, and derives a fl ailing energy from its doubts about itself. But these come at a price, which is paid by the characters in the play. A kind of clarity fi nally comes. In the end, is the end. ' INTERMISSION “Two couples chat with one another at a play’s intermission. From what we have heard, it sounds dreadful, which the cocky Jack points out. But his quibbles give way before Mr. Murray’s torrent of memory and invective. He doesn’t want to hear stylistic complaints, he wants the boy to recognize the play’s attempts at truth. And while Mr. Murray’s curmudgeon sneers at audiences’ yen for weeping at shows, Mr. Eno then makes us – practically by brute force – cry for him. Mr. Eno’s triumph is both canny and deeply touching, a vital look into a theater that actually reminds us what it’s for.” The New York Sun
Join the jury as two of history’s most stubborn intellectuals go head-to-head in a highly entertaining battle of reason versus faith. Set in late 1517, this smart, sprightly and audacious comedy centres on a fi ctitious meeting between university colleagues Dr. Faustus (a man of appetites), Martin Luther (a man of faith), and their student Hamlet (a young Prince struggling not only with his beliefs but also with his tennis game). This sparkling celebration of history, language, academia and religion by award-winning American playwright David Davalos will appeal to anyone looking for the answers to life’s big questions.
[i]'Brixton… A great spillover of excessive dreams. Anonymous masses… All of you are dancers of the dying beat. I come with the strong arm to ignite the rhythm, to drive again your passion for life.'</i. A revolutionary preacher begs the crowds to 'abandon the wilful peace' that keeps them down. He tries to make them believe that things could be different. But when people pray only for a brand new car or a large KFC bucket, the citizens of Brixton need a miracle to happen… The Christ of Coldharbour Lane premiered at the Soho Theatre in May 2007.
Adapted from the myth of Thyestes, Blush of Dogs traces one woman’s battle with oppression and repressive cycles, feverishly driven to break free of the vortex of hateful love that binds together two hostile brothers. Inspired by the conflict of freedoms and the crisis of identity, private feuds teem in the shadows of intense public scrutiny. A visceral, playful and raucous piece about mental health, 5 out of 10 Men plunges deep into the pitfalls of modern masculinity. Rooted in true experiences and deep exploration, it invites us to be open, to journey unabashedly into ourselves, as one wounded man weaves a confessional hymn to his dead brother, a new consciousness blooming as he is torn between the man he is and the man he strives to be. Image and poetic clash and synthesise, physical and raw and visceral, the painfully comic and the laughably tragic. Themes of loneliness and solitude, family and friendship, sex, death and miscommunication play out in raucously funny worlds built not on logic but on metaphor and subjective hallucinations.
In my family we start out giants and end up pygmies, grandiosity runs in the blood. Oliver Walzer is shy, bookish, Jewish. He doesn’t know how to talk to girls. But he can chop, flick and spin a ping pong ball better than any teenager in Manchester. When Sheeny Waxman takes him under his wing on the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis team, Oliver channels his frustrated adolescent lust into the game he loves. That is until the heartbreaking Lorna Peachley and the prospect of a place at Cambridge take his eye off the ball.
HEFIN knows he’s adopted – just not where from. JAY’s felt hiraeth for fifteen years. What the f*** is ‘hiraeth’ ? This dynamic, bilingual play in English & Welsh from award-winning playwright Alun Saunders is the story of two brothers, raised apart in separate families and different languages. Originally produced by The Other Room (Winner of Fringe Theatre of the Year – The Stage Awards 2016), Neontopia & Wales Millennium Centre’s reimagined production for 2016 revisits the heartrending, rollercoaster story of HEFIN & JAY, where things go from brilliant to horrific in a heartbeat. A Neontopia & Wales Millennium Centre co-production, in association with The Other Room and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, supported by the Arts Council of Wales.
The 56 ‘Nobody dies in football matches in fires. It doesn’t happen.’ At 3.40pm on 11th May 1985, a small fire broke out in the main stand at Valley Parade football ground during the last game of the season. Within four minutes, the wooden structure was ablaze. Adapted solely from over sixty real-life testimonies, this pertinent piece of documentary theatre pays homage to the supporters who lost their lives in one of the darkest days in British footballing history. The 56 examines the solidarity, strength and community in the face of overwhelming tragedy. E15 ‘We want social housing, not social cleansing.’br> Facing skyrocketing rent and forced relocation out of London, twenty-nine single mothers united to confront Newham Council’s gentrification of their hometown. From the streets of Newham to the Houses of Parliament, this bold piece of documentary theatre is adapted from the real-life testimonies of the most under-represented and prominent voices on the political spectrum – providing a truthful retelling of the Focus E15 Campaign, Britain’s housing crisis and how one group of women refused to be marginalized. This is the beginning of the end of the housing crisis.