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Showing posts with label Yasmin Paige. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yasmin Paige. Show all posts

Thursday, 2 September 2021

Theatre review:
Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia

It's not often the main focus of war movies or other popular culture, so I'm probably not alone in finding where Africa fits into the Second World War something of a blind spot. If German officer Grandma (Adrian Edmondson) is to be believed, it was seen as a backwater during the War as well: He says the most promising Nazis are kept in Europe, and only the "animals" are sent to Africa where nobody's paying much attention to what they might get up to. Josh Azouz' Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia takes place in 1942, when officers like Grandma and his henchman Little Fella* (Daniel Rainford) presided over a somewhat precarious occupation: Their defeat of the hated French gave them some degree of sympathy with the Arab locals, but while there wasn't much resistance to the persecution of Jews in Tunis, neither did they find the enthusiastic allies they hoped for - perhaps because, under the Nazis' rhetoric supporting an independent nation, many knew that once they were done with the Jews, the Muslims would likely be next.

Monday, 27 April 2015

Theatre review: Ah, Wilderness!

The Young Vic website describes Ah, Wilderness! as "Eugene O'Neill's most delightful play," a field that with the best will in the world can't have that many runners in it. Elsewhere I've seen the blunter "Eugene O'Neill's only intentional comedy." It is a surprisingly sweet affair though, something of a love letter not just to a particular woman in the playwright's life, but to young love itself. It's the Fourth of July and an extended New England family gather at the home of local newspaper editor Nat Miller (Martin Marquez.) The obvious stand-in for a young O'Neill is the middle son, George MacKay's Richard, a likeably recognisable emo teenager in Natalie Abrahami's modern-dress production. Fond of reading the works of European playwrights and poets like Wilde and Shaw - much to the concern of his mother Essie (Janie Dee) - Richard has been sending overwrought love letters to a local girl. When her father catches on, he order her to break it off immediately.