I suppose if you stage as many shows as the Finborough does, themes will start to
emerge in the programming, whether intentionally or not - I'm guessing "the theatre
that stages plays with menacingly symbolic foxes" isn't a tagline they'll be putting
on the posters, but after Foxfinder and We Know Where You Live there's a sense of
déjà vu when the animals turn up again in Run The Beast Down.
Director-turned-writer Titas Halder offers up a long monologue for Charlie (Ben
Aldridge,) an obnoxious city trader and hipster who, in the opening scene, loses his
job and his girlfriend in quick succession. In seven chapters told out of
chronological order, he tells us about how things started to fall apart both at work
and in his relationship; and once he's stuck at home with nothing to do, his
breakdown takes the form of an obsession with the foxes screaming outside at night.
Writing down what I think about theatre I've seen in That London, whether I've been asked to or not.
Showing posts with label Hannah Price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hannah Price. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 February 2017
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Theatre review: The Dead Monkey
Apparently Nick Darke's The Dead Monkey is regularly revived internationally, but it's not a play I'd heard of before. Set in 1970s California, Hank (James Lance) and Dolores (Ruth Gibson) have been married 15 years, living in a tatty little beach house. Hank's wages as a travelling salesman don't stretch too far, especially as he has an insatiably hungry and disruptive pet monkey to feed. As the play opens, the monkey has died while Hank was away, and Dolores is trying to figure out how to break the news to him. It seems at first that their marriage will survive the loss of its unusual third member, especially when they get a Macedonian curly piglet called Dogduck to replace it. But this is clearly a destructive relationship and the more they try to pretend it isn't, the closer they come to things getting really ugly.
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