Latest news with #Brechtian
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The fury of Pussy Riot's Riot Days is more vital than ever
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The world has changed since Pussy Riot first bombarded their way into Edinburgh in 2018 to win a Herald Angel award. Back then, key member of the anarchic balaclava-clad Russian art collective Maria Alyokhina transformed her experiences on the frontline into an incendiary piece of multi-media punk theatre. This followed a high-profile trial after Alyokhina and two other members of the collective were imprisoned after performing an anti-Putin action in a Russian Orthodox Church. The result, adapted from Alyokhina's memoir, Riot Days, and performed by Alyokhina with a well-drilled band of actor/musicians, was an urgent piece of in-yer-face agit-prop. The Herald has teamed up with to make the purchase of tickets for the festival so much easier. Seven years on, the fifty-minute compendium of autobiographical monologues, Brechtian captions, documentary film footage, primitive martial beats and industrial sturm und drang is brought bang up to date with a new band and fresh material. The former features vocal upstarts Olga Borisova and Taso Pletner, with the latter also playing flute. While Alyokhina remains at the show's centre, Borisova and Pletner flank her in a way that gives off a guerrilla girl group vibe. This is pulsed by the martial drums and electronic beats conjured up by Eric Breitenbach of Canadian band, New Age Doom. The show's narrative has developed to draw from Alyokhina's forthcoming second book, Political Girl: Life and Fate in Russia, and includes details of Pussy Riot's disruption of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games and Alyokhina's further arrests and imprisonment. It also honours the death of anti-corruption politician, Alexey Navalny, who was almost killed after being poisoned, and later died while in prison. There is a moving moment of silence too as film footage of Russian journalist Irina Slavina is shown of her setting herself on fire. The shadow of Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine also hangs heavy throughout the piece. Read more: In what feels like a more disciplined if just as relentless production, overseen by producer Alexander Cheparukhin and with input from composer Alina Petrova, this new version of Riot Days is about evolution as much as revolution. While acknowledging the symbolism of yore, largely this is Pussy Riot unmasked in a blitz of a show that is part history lesson, part living newspaper. At its conclusion, Alyokhina highlights how what is currently happening in Russia could easily happen anywhere. Coming a few days after more than 400 peaceful protestors were arrested, not in the old Eastern Bloc, but in twenty-first century Britain, Riot Days remains a vital call to arms. Runs at Summerhall until 23 August.
The Guardian
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
His Last Report review – dynamic celebration of chocolatier's son who invented ‘the poverty line'
There are myriad reasons why this parochial production will never travel outside the city walls of York, not least of which is the size of the more than 80-strong community cast. There are also jokes that you will only fully appreciate if you understand ancient antagonisms between Yorkshire's West and North Ridings and why 'Cadbury's' (in a place built around Rowntree's) is a punchline. Yet writers Misha Duncan-Barry and Bridget Foreman have plundered this most local of stories and found something universal, relevant and powerful. Antony Jardine, one of two professional actors in the production (the other being Amelia Donkor playing Gulie Harlock) plays Seebohm Rowntree, the son of Joseph Rowntree, chocolatier, philanthropist and modest man (unlike Titus Salt who named a whole village after himself; a joke that acts as a litmus test of whether or not you will get this story). Seebohm grew up in privilege and emerged a social reformer, conducting three comprehensive studies into poverty in York during his lifetime. We meet him burning his last study, having arrived at the end of a lifetime of work believing nothing has changed, despite introducing the concept of the 'poverty line', below which nobody, he believed, should fall. Directors Juliet Forster and Paul Birch give a sense of dynamism to this history lesson by employing tricks including a literal trapeze artist swinging from the rafters. The history of Seebohm Rowntree becomes increasingly interrupted by meta-intrusions – at one point we watch actors playing the writers and directors of the play we're watching, rehearsing the play we are watching. As we watch Seebohm attempt to raise people out of poverty, we also see a performance of a King Lear speech, which transforms into an enormous pageant and celebration of the power of art itself. By the end, when the modern world of zero-hour contracts and clogged GP telephone lines have completely bled into Seebohm's early 20th century, it all gets a little Boal and Brechtian, to moving effect. With his resolution that he has 'so much to do' you can't help but also hear a little of Alexander Hamilton in Seebohm Rowntree. This is a big play with big ideas, but one which has been well contained within the city walls. At York Theatre Royal until 3 August
Time Out
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The Anarchy (1138-53)
Enter the KXT on Broadway theatre, which has been transformed into a brutal and deadly jousting arena. Choose a side, and sit on that side. DO NOT CROSS THE STAGE! THERE ARE SPIKES AND MIRRORS THAT YOU CANNOT STEP ON! Now wait. You're here for The Anarchy (1138-53). You will be overwhelmed for 2 hours and 15 minutes. You might like it, or you might hate it, or you might choose to leave. None of that's up to me, but once you've seen it, you might like to read something to help you make sense of it. Here is my attempt to write something about it for that purpose, with the caveat that all criticism is somewhat subjective, and nothing is a substitute for going outside and buying a ticket and taking a risk on a brilliant (or awful!) experience. Presented by UK/Australian experimental theatre company Doppelgangster in association with bAKEHOUSE THEATRE COMPANY, and performed by sibling duo Kerith and Tobias Manderson-Galvin, The Anarchy (1138-53) is Part 1 of an odyssey set in the fictional medieval town of Cross Roads. Doppelgangster boasts that their previous works have generated walkouts, physical fights and cancellations, along with cult followings and critical acclaim – and this new presentation proudly channels that rebellious spirit. The Anarchy (1138-53) is something like a DIY punk/garage gig, a role playing game, a Brechtian nightmare, a couple of clowns finding meaning, or a cabaret. But it's really none of those things either. It repeats and loops in on itself, with nothing certain but a number of grisly ways to die, to perform, to attempt to communicate. For the most part, it is two people yelling into the void and hoping something might happen. precisely orchestrated to never let you rest... it's strangely meditative On opening night, a number of things did happen. We, the audience, stood up, dutifully followed directions, one person walked out, and we stared at each other, the performers and the mirrors lining the stage and walls in confusion (or awe, or something else entirely). Herein lies the postmodern genius of The Anarchy. This is not a narrative or something you can sit back and place judgement upon from afar – you are embroiled in it, whatever it is and whatever you think about it. For me, it is a constant act of construction, destruction and reconstruction: Tobias says something, you listen, then Tobias starts throwing up. Kerith quickly takes over with another barrage of information. Then, there is an extended stretch of dialogue for you to wade through. While it may seem crass or overly simplistic, it is precisely orchestrated to never let you rest. It's an endurance test of sorts, for you and the performers, and it's strangely meditative. This unrelenting effort is heightened by bold production design, with textile art by Chelsea Hickman, sound composition by Pat Fielding, and lighting design by the Manderson-Galvins. Lights go from dank darkness to blinding brightness at varying intervals, obscuring and revealing a mass of seemingly-irrelevant props on either side of the stage. Tapestries on either side of the mirrored walls declare various slogans. Slow, electric bass is intercut with noisy electric guitars. Something like a bird chirps in the background. It's noise, noise and more noise. It all builds into a symphony of horrors. Nothing I've ever experienced has even come close to preparing me for what it is to be alive right now, surrounded by constant noise and distractions from the terrors of late stage capitalism and our rapidly devolving society. If you're game, The Anarchy is the sort of art that might just help you process the horrors. Wherever we turn, there is violence: genocide, homelessness, growth, profit, whatever you want to call it. We can choose to ignore it. That is our privilege. Or, we can choose to find our way through, together. Because nothing changes without us. Buy a ticket, and then buy another, and sit through it all again. See what happens if you say something back. There might be something in it. In any case, you mustn't forget to sing.
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The Independent
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
An absurdist fable for fascism, The Almeida's production of Rhinoceros is a rare beast on London's stages
Eugène Ionesco's 1959 absurdist play Rhinoceros has long been seen as an allegory for the rise of fascism, showing how people are gaslighted, coerced and coddled into putting up with a bizarre new status quo. So it would be easy for Omar Elerian's adaptation to play up the obvious Trump parallels. Refreshingly, he hasn't, instead crafting something that deliberately floats above ugly political realities, buoyant as a child's balloon. Here, Sopé Dìrísù (Gangs of London) plays Bérenger, a scruffy everyman surrounded by conformist bores in white coats. Not least his sanctimonious friend Jean, given a winning smugness by Joshua McGuire (Cheaters), who tells him off for boozing and not wearing a tie. When a rhino rampages through his small French town, Bérenger is horrified, but his friends and colleagues soon bury themselves in dry philosophical debates that accustom them to a new pachyderm-centric way of life. Elerian takes a Brechtian approach to the play, reading out Ionesco's elaborate stage directions and comically misinterpreting them for the audience's amusement (a cat is played by a giant watermelon). Everything is artificial here, from the live foley sound effects to the strange swirly shapes into which the actors' hair has been teased. This deliberate non-naturalism makes it hard to settle into the world of the play, especially since Elerian has chucked so many different jarring elements into the mix here. Some early scenes inflate like over-proved dough, with their long preambles and verbal repartee that's too literally translated to achieve full hilarity. But as the leathery-skinned beasts multiply, this production's power grows, helped by wonderfully imaginative bits of physical theatre. McGuire's transformation into a silver-skinned monster is a marvel, his shifting body capturing how attempts to empathise with extreme positions can open you up to losing your own values. Hayley Carmichael quakes like a freshly-birthed faun after her encounter with a rhino, but soon her terror matures into a surreal kind of love. And Paul Hunter acts as an unofficial emcee and anchor in this strange world, gently inculcating the audience into its rules. Dìrísù initially feels a bit lost here, giving a straightforwardly truthful performance among all these heightened grotesques. But there's a mounting power in that as the final scenes draw in and chaos reigns, thundering hooves crushing everything he used to know. A production like this is a rare beast on London's stages – with its gleeful non-naturalism, witty physical theatre and tooting kazoos – and it deserves to be appreciated.
Los Angeles Times
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Ron Sossi, founder of the provocative Odyssey Theatre in L.A., dies
Ron Sossi, the founder of L.A.'s experimental and boundary-pushing Odyssey Theatre, has died. He was 85. Sossi died of congestive heart failure March 19 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, an Odyssey spokeswoman said. Sossi, a legend in the local theater community, was known for challenging conventional thinking and creating a space where new ideas would be greeted with open arms. 'His theater defied convention — producing work that many of L.A.'s larger stages might shy away from, ignoring financial models in favor of risk, passion and artistic necessity,' said Bart DeLorenzo, director of more than a dozen plays at the Odyssey, who noted the theater's early history of premiering important work. 'His Brechtian sensibility, his belief in theater as a political force to shape a culture, and his embrace of direct theatricality has left an indelible mark on a whole generation of theater-makers and audiences.' Sossi was born Nov. 22, 1939, in Detroit. He attended the University of Michigan and graduated with a degree in writing for theater and television. He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, where he won the Samuel Goldwyn award for screenwriting. As an MFA student, he supported himself as a wedding photographer and water filter salesman. He also worked as an actor and singer. While in school, he traveled to Korea, Japan and Guam for a college production of 'Carousel.' On that trip he met Bonnie Franklin, and the classmates and co-stars were later married from 1967 to 1970. After graduating from UCLA, Sossi got a job as a program executive at ABC overseeing shows such as 'Bewitched,' 'The Flying Nun' and 'Love, American Style.' When working in television lost its shine, Sossi redirected his artistic efforts to the theater. In 1969 he opened the Odyssey on an unglamorous part of Hollywood Boulevard, next to a porn theater. Sossi started to push his creative limits with its first productions — 'A Man's a Man' by Bertolt Brecht, 'The Serpent' by Jean-Claude van Itallie, 'The Threepenny Opera' by Brecht and Kurt Weill and 'The Bacchae' by Euripides. Presenting a mix of new work and reimagined classics, the Odyssey found its niche with L.A.'s theatergoers. This creative hub soon became known for welcoming the avant-garde of the past and present. 'I think my approach is a little different than most people's,' Sossi told The Times in 1989, 'in that I'm attracted to metaphysical ideas and philosophical ideas, but not to a lot of sociological and political stuff.' He recalled various dinner gatherings with other directors. 'There was a strong feeling that you were only doing serious theater if you were doing political theater — and everything else was escapist entertainment,' Sossi said. 'I remember saying, 'Wait a minute! What about theater that deals with the great philosophical questions — you know, the meaning of it all. What's it all about? What's life? What's death? What's time? What's space?' They kind of pooh-poohed me, like, 'Come on, grow up.'' In 1973, Sossi moved the Odyssey to a 99-seat theater in West L.A. Over several years he developed the venue into a three-theater complex. In 1989 the building was sold and Sossi relocated the Odyssey to its current location on Sepulveda Boulevard. That complex officially opened in 1990 with Brian Friel's 'Faith Healer.' In recent years, as the Odyssey welcomed the work of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, María Irene Fornés and Gertrude Stein, Sossi connected a new generation of theater-makers with their audacious and influential forebears. For more than 50 years, Sossi's admirers said, the Odyssey artistic director provided a platform for those committed to reimagining what a theater could be, no matter the prestige or pedigree of an artist. Instead of a service or ceremony, Sossi's wish was 'that the ongoing vibrancy of the theater he built would serve as his only memorial,' according to a press release. Sossi is survived by his wife, Séverine Larue, and his sister, Nancy Foley. L.A. Times theater critic Charles McNulty contributed to this report.
