Hello everyone!
How are you? I talk a bit near the end so lets jump straight into things
Below are this weeks selection
enjoy
€5
Saturday 13th & Sunday 14 November
You could say, CIVILISATION begins with a hairdryer, with a completely normal day in the life of a young woman. Or so it seems, because her life has just gone pretty far off course. You could say, CIVILISATION “is many things at the same time: theatre, dance, performance art, illuminating and mysterious, hilarious and heart-breaking” as theatre critic Liam Rees wrote in 2019 after the premiere in Edinburgh. This describes a production that imperceptibly makes something tangible for which there are first of all no words to describe.
CIVILISATION draws the narrative arc step by step and is patient enough to allow what is to be understood here slowly occur in the audience – as confusing or as fundamental as you allow it to be, as warm and as full-on as possible. At the same time, the theatrical form with which director Jaz Woodcock-Stewart and her artistic colleagues take the audience on the journey with them is quite astounding. While Sophie Steer performs a monologue almost without any words, the three dancers open up a parallel universe, through which feelings steer their course. And this dramaturgy is so compelling, poetic, direct and tangible that it leaves a powerful echo behind.
DOMNA'S SONG by Martha Mavroidi, Maro Vasiliadou & Maria Magkanari
€5
on demand
In the turbulent years of the Greek Revolution, a lesser-known heroine of the Greek Struggle for Independence engages in a conversation with herself, her time, and the modern-day audience. Domna’s Song uses historical evidence (archival records, testimonies of the time, documents, ship logs, letters) as raw material, and processes it with various writing styles, ranging from the folk fifteen-syllable verse to experiential writing, to convey the external reality of events and the characters’ inner life.
Domna Visvizi’s story in the form of a monologue with choral stasima is portrayed with sensitivity by actress Syrmo Keke, and woven through the means of music theatre by a female creative team consisting of journalist/author Maro Vasiliadou, composer Martha Mavroidi –who knowledgeably interlaces folk musical styles with contemporary ones– and stage director Maria Magkanari.
FUCK YOU, Eu.ro.Pa! by Nicoleta Esinencu
€5
Thursday 11th November
Nicoleta Esinencu was born in 1978 in a country that no longer exists. Just like the protagonist in FUCK YOU, EU.RO.PA!, a play the Moldavian author wrote as a fellow at Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and which earned her the Romanian dramAcum Prize in 2005 and a performance ban in Moldova. Esinencu’s monologue is a self-confident game with the listener, it’s a confession, an accusation, a collection of symptoms and memories of radical change: from communism to post-communism, to a new time, in which everything and not much changes, from the promise of salvation to disillusionment.
It is this perspective that the German-French director délit B.-Malthet and her collective europa transistor are interested in, convinced that “individual identity and the collective, conforming and exclusion, inequalities, nationhood and homelessness” are the very essence of European themes. Due to the pandemic, her theatre project FUCK YOU, EU.RO.PA! has not made it to the stage yet. With a commission to produce a film version, the Theater Maillon in Strasbourg and Fast Forward continue their cooperation to promote young theatre-makers who work across borders and language barriers.
How to Kill a Rose by Transcend Theatre
Pay what you can
From Friday 12th November
How To Kill a Rose follows the story of a transgender couple; 16 year old ‘Me’ and 23 year old ‘Him’. Using a dynamic mix of Scouse humour and delicate spoken word poetry, the story follows the journey of their relationship and explores the often subtle and unnoticed aspects of abuse.
How to Kill a Rose, by Felix Mufti-Wright, shines a light on the issue of domestic abuse within the transgender community.
SERCE (Herz) by Wiktor Bagiński
€5
Thursday 11th November
SERCE is Wiktor Bagiński’s debut at the TR Warszawa, his reward for winning the Polish Young Director’s Forum prize and with which he completed his degree at the National Academy of Theatre Arts. Bagiński’s own biography is the starting point for an impressive artistic examination of Europe’s colonial history and its consequences, which are still being felt today. In collaboration with the writer Martyna Wawrzyniak, he overwrites Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS with the story of a young Pole who grows up as a person of colour without a father, whom he also never meets. His journey into the heart of his own history is performed by a white ensemble at the TR Warszawa. In this way, Bagiński opens up an extraordinary space on stage: of encounter, of conflict, of a story about one of the most important issues today:
“My tragedy is not about being black. My tragedy is not even about being a black Pole. The tragedy that I am most afraid of – to paraphrase James Baldwin – is about accepting theology that rejects life. By that I mean accepting a possibility of being a subhuman. If there is such possibility, or rather if there is ever a glimpse of such a thought, then a fight for one’s humanity begins. This performance abandons discourse in favour of experience. Experience of loss and abandonment, that brought suffering. However it is the search of the source of the birth of hatred that brings carefree affirmation of ABSENCE. Absence of a father.” Wiktor Bagiński.
free
Wednesday 10th November
How do we experience our health care system? How embarrassing is it to just wait and wait when we are ill and vulnerable? What are our experiences or stereotypes of the Roma, addicts, or extremist youngsters that who might be our neighbors in a ward. The health care system has a lot of weak points, and we all have at least one horror story. But have a look at this question from another angle: let’s see what we can do for a change! Independent Theater Hungary’s play shows different viewpoints on health care and general coexistence to draw attention to the importance of taking action.
I’ve been doing these for a year now. The second etude I ever did featured a show from Fast Forward festival and this week I’m including three. I’ve started to really look forward to this festival as it’s a great line up of emerging european work. It doesn’t feel focused just on just Western work and I think there’s been a shift on theatre twitter form moving from idolising Western European work to looking up to Eastern European shows.
One issue I’ve always found is that we (and like I do too tbh. Seeing a Warlikowski show for the first time this summer did blow my brains a lil and I would kill to see some of his work staged in the uk again) tend to over praise large monolitic old dudes who use dated practices to create shows that cost too much but don’t say enough. There’s always a clinical distance to the work that feels like there wasn’t much collaboration in the space. I dunno but I just cba with the likes of Van Hove or Lupa becuase their work feels so opressive in it’s theatrical structures.
The work at Fast Forward feels generous. I remeber seeing _jeanne_dark_ by Marion Siéfert and I was struck by how compassionate it felt and was to it’s subject matter. It wasn’t dense in what it wanted to tell an audience but used empathy towards its subject matter and that translated so vigirously to it’s aestethics and content. The show focused on a 16 year old girl who was trying to understand who they were and how their unbringing brought them to where they are today. It was a show that presented Jeanne as this a complex oxymoron, alone in a giant, empty white stage, made tiny by the vastness of blankness that surrounds her but giant and in control via instagram live. I saw the show a year ago now but It’s really stuck with me ( i also cant review shows well cos I cant write good). The work at this years Fast Forward feels fresh. It feels new and it’s so vital we give support to this wave of new European makers. I feel like if we want the future of theatre to continue then we need to take a dive into these works and be vocal about our love and support of them. Be a fan.
Thanks for reading!
if you liked it please tell ur mates to subscrbie. I’m near 250 and that would be neat to hit
also, if you do have a show that’s streaming. Please do tell me. I feel like I’m missing a lot of UK based shows at the momenet because I’m only seeing the promo for the stream like a day or two before. I don’t know if this is becuase things just fall through the cracks but I want to support UK artists who are streaming work get their shows seen! So yeah, if you have a show. Tell me by responding to this email!
Thanks again and take care
Josh
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