Tag: Gabriel Akuwudike

Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor by Chè Walker, Finborough Theatre, 11 January 2019

Our first theatre visit of the year, we thought this one got us off to a cracking start. Click here or on the picture below to read the Finborough’s bumf on the play/production.

Click Pick To See Finborough info

Six superb performances – a really talented troupe, which, frankly, this play needs. We’d recently seen Benjamin Cawley in The Strange Death of John Doe at the Hampstead Studio…

The Strange Death Of John Doe by Fiona Doyle, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, Followed By Dinner At Fora With Dot And Randy, 23 June 2018

…and even more recently seen Gabriel Akuwudike in Dealing With Clair at the Orange Tree.

Dealing With Clair by Martin Crimp, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 November 2018

Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor is a fairly traditional revenge tragedy plot, played out in a sort-of film noir style. Imagine Raymond Chandler, Tennessee Williams and David Mamet collaborating on a revenge play set in the Latino (or should I say Latinx?) community in Los Angeles…you might be getting an idea of it.

At the end of a long week there’s always a risk that a 90 minute play without an interval will test our attention span – but this racey and pacey piece held our attention throughout.

Credit to Daisy for choosing this one – in truth, I wasn’t attracted to it by the bumf. Also, the fact that the writer, Chè Walker, was also directing, raised alarm bells with me. The absence of the checks and balances that a separate writer and director brings to a play/production is often a road to weakness, but in this case I think Chè Walker has pulled off a coup.

Daisy was ever so pleased with herself when we recalled that this one was very much her idea.

Here is a link to the reviews – so far mixed – but our vote is with the best of them. A great start to our year of theatre-going.

Dealing With Clair by Martin Crimp, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 November 2018

We thought this was a fabulous piece and production – once again a superb evening of theatre at the Orange Tree.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree on-line resource for this production.

We’ve been interested in Martin Crimp’s writing for years. Sometimes his plays are a bit too weird even for us, but they always make us think and are usually chock-full of suspense and creepiness.

Dealing With Clair is no exception. One of Crimp’s earlier works this, when he was writing exclusively for The Orange Tree, it is very loosely based on the Suzy Lamplugh tragedy, which occurred a short while before the writing of this play and not too far away from Richmond.

Yet, this play from 30 years ago seems very contemporary and relevant today in this production.

The whole cast was excellent.

Our hearts sank a little when we saw that the designer had gone for one of those “behind a screen” designs, which we tend not to like, but actually it worked extremely well for this production, not least because the screen is removed at a telling moment in the play.

By gosh the play is creepy. We were talking about it a lot, for ages, after the evening – which is usually a sign that a play/production has really affected us – which this one surely did.

There are plenty of review snippets on the above links to the Orange Tree, but click here for links to the full reviews – mostly very good ones which the production thoroughly deserves.

I keep saying it, but the Orange Tree is doing great work at the moment – I hope they keep it going.