Utility by Emily Schwend, Orange Tree Theatre, 2 June 2018

We thought this was a fabulous piece, beautifully portrayed.

The synopsis sounds like a great many plays; a domestic drama about a woman trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage, struggling to keep the household together domestically and financially.

This is kitchen sink drama to such an extent that there is even a kitchen sink with a somewhat intrusive window as part of the set. I think the theatre had accidentally withheld two decent seats (our usual favourites) and sold the two that were restricted by the set; so we made a late seat swap to return to “our” regular seats. Minor stuff for previewistas like us – I’m sure the Orange Tree will resolve/have resolved for post preview audiences.

In short, the play is extremely well written and the performances are all excellent, making this an exceptional production well worth seeing.

Here is a link to the Orange tree resource for this play.

All of the performances were excellent, but Robyn Addison as the lead role, Amber, was a standout performance in this piece.

Formal reviews have just started to come in at the time of writing, but they seem to be coming through as deservedly good ones – click here for a link to find them.

Did Janie and I go to Don Fernando to chew over the issues and some Spanish food afterwards?  By heck we did.

If you get a chance to see this production of Utility, we suggest you take it.

We Are Proud To… by Jackie Sibblies Drury , Bush Theatre, 15 March 2014

This was a very unusual piece about the Herero people of Namibia and the tragedy that befell them at the hands of the German colonial power in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The whole title is unfeasibly long.

It is written & performed in the post-modern style of a group of young people trying to put together a performance about…

It occasionally grated but mostly it worked well; a very moving, informative and entertaining piece.

Here is a link to the Bush resource on the play/production.

It divided the critics, did this one – a search term with links to reviews is here.

Here is a YouTube with the playwright and director: