Play Mas by Mustapha Matura, Orange Tree Theatre, 21 March 2015

Fascinating play, this, about Trinidad in the early post-independence days. It weaves in the tense racial politics of that time and place; an element of sexual politics too I suppose. Quite shocking as the potential horror of this type of power politics plays out, through mock violence to the inevitable ultra-violence.

The play was written back in the 1970’s, but seemed very modern still. Indeed, writing nearly two years later (January 2017) thinking again about the power and politics material from this play rings those alarm bells in my head even louder than they are currently ringing without help.

Not an easy play but very well produced, directed and acted at the Orange Tree. Janie and I were really taken with this one; a further sign that the new Paul Miller regime was prepared to do innovative and varied work.

Good Orange Tree resources on-line, sparing me a lot of effort – click here.

It got universally good reviews, which it deserved, so the comments shown on-line pretty much sum it up and you could doubtless track down some full reviews from those leads if you wish.

Janie and I enjoyed some Spanish food at Don Fernando after theatre, as is our Orange Tree habit, making the whole evening a great success.

 

 

Free Outgoing by Anupama Chandrasekhar, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 November 2007

We thought this might be a good one. That’s why we made the rare decision to book the Royal Court for a Friday evening.

We were not disappointed.

The story is simple enough; a young Indian girl in Mumbai has been videoed by her boyfriend having sex with him and the video inadvertently goes viral, ruining the youngsters lives; in particular hers and those of her family.

Lots of big modern issues in there. We found the play intriguing and disturbing. The production was very well done.

The Royal Court stub on this one is excellent, with several good reviews reproduced in full – here.

Charles Spencer’s in the Telegraph is not one of those reproduced, but is still a very good review, here.

Philip Fisher also gave it a rave review in the British Theatre Guide – here.

It is a fairly short piece but no harm in that. I seem to recall it got a gig downstairs a year or so later, deservedly so.

Clubland by Roy Williams, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 June 2001

We are very partial to modern plays in Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and this play by Roy Williams did not disappoint.

I think this was our first sighting of a Roy Williams play – we started picking him after seeeing this.

Here’s Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard speaking quite highly of it:

Clubland de Jongh Standard Clubland de Jongh Standard 20 Jun 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Jonathan Myerson in the Independent was not so sure:

Clubland Myerson Independent Clubland Myerson Independent 20 Jun 2001 The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Our friend, Michael Billington, suggested that this play was not as good as Roy Williams earlier material and that he needed to branch out a bit. I think he was probably right, as we really went for some of William’s later plays even more than this one, but it was good enough to get us hooked:

Clubland Billington Guardian better Clubland Billington Guardian better 23 Jun 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com