Tag: Falk Richter

Trust by Falk Richter, Gate Theatre, 23 February 2018

This was a quite extraordinary piece. Weird, in a way that, it seems, only German plays can be weird.

Janie and I often walk away from such strange stuff baffled and dissatisfied, but certainly not on this occasion – we found the piece compelling to watch and entertaining, as well as baffling.

Sixteen very different scenes, ranging from videos with voice-overs, to seemingly straightforward two-handed romantic strife, to a Mandarin Chinese lesson for the audience…

…I suppose it’s all about the abuse of trust – domestic, financial and governmental.

Here is a link to The Gate’s resource on this production – click here…

…and below is the trailer, although the play only gives a passing mention to Brexit – you might expect more Brexit based on the trailer.

Excellent performances from Pia Laborde Noguez and Zephryn Taitte…and indeed from Jude Christian, the ubiquitous director who chose also to appear in this one.

Exceptional use of an infeasible quantity of props in a small space.

We thought the piece was very imaginative indeed and would recommend it highly. Yet another feather in the cap for Ellen MacDougall and her Gate tenure.

It will be interesting to see how critics and other people react to this piece. We saw a preview, but Daisy and I were interviewed for reaction on the way out – so we might well “form part of the conversation”, as the young folk say.

Update: yes, I got my 1.5 seconds of fame in the vox pop – see below but don’t blink or you might miss it:

Go see this show for yourself, if you are able – at the time of writing it has three weeks more to run.

Once it has reviews, this search term – click here – should find them.

State of Emergency by Falk Richter, Gate Theatre, 7 November 2008

A short dystopian piece about lives in a gated community in some future or remote authoritarian place.  Here is a link to The Gate’s stub on this piece.

We have done this sort of play on a Friday evening at The Gate before (and since), because it is sometimes so convenient to see them and stay at the flat on a Friday, but heavy/dystopian drama is not my first choice of activity for a Friday night.

Anyway, beyond our temporal reasons for being unsure about it, the critics also seemed unsure:

The acting was top notch and as always we marvel at the way they manage to turn that small space above a pub into a proper space for drama. But Janie and I concurred with the reviewers about the play.

Not sure whether I cooked or whether we grabbed some Turkish food from the (now late, lamented) Manzara. As I’d delivered my Gresham lecture the night before and (it seems) gone off early on the Friday morning to see clients, I’ll guess the latter and jolly tasty it will have been too.