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Here’s where all the old reviews etc go.
THE BLACK ALBUM
on until 07/10/09
So the scene is set – it’s the eighties, and the young Shahid Hasan (an Asian kid) played by Jonathan Bonnici is off to college in London. In another city Salman Rushdie’s book the Satanic Verses is being burnt and eventually a Fatwa is issued on his head. Shahid is played innocent and untouched by politics, religion, finding delights in writing reading and more specifically Prince. When there he is surrounded by young men who follow the words and wisdom of Riaz al Hussain, a radicalised Muslim who has got together a team of young vulnerable people to try to make a difference to the way muslims are treated in London.
The production is strong and I loved the use of the projections on the set – they were projected onto the three walls of a room. Becoming wallpaper, graffiti, shelves, you name it – the walls were transformed into many different spaces by these projections, which brought colour to the play - these were designed by Tim Hatley. The music was also commendable, bringing back the eighties to life, whilst also mixing in some slightly more recent tracks – this was achieved by Faithless’ Sister Bliss.
Overall, however, the production felt a little slow, all of this play is relevant but it felt difficult to relate to it, and dragged a bit. The Black Album was originally a novel by Hanif Kureshi, and I am sure that by reading it one would gain all the insight and information needed. However theatre does something different to fiction (or non-fiction as the case may be) and although the theatre company Tara was compelling to watch, I think it was the script, overall that let the production down.
Despite this however I still left the theatre thinking “I must read this” and debating what happened at that time in 1989, when a book got burnt on the streets of Bradford.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/47978/productions/the-black-album.html
BRAZIL x2
The Assault – at the Old Red Lion, a UK premiere of Jose Vicente’s play from the 60s is surreal, dark and despairing, in many more ways than one.
The play opens in a bank clerk’s office. The monotonous noise, the habit the drag of daily life working for ‘The Man’ (yes we all know it). Something’s not quite right about this bank clerk in particular, and when the nig
- Brazilian x2 by Alter Ego
ht cleaner arrives things start to unravel. Mainly in the clerk’s head, but also in the morality of the two men. The clerk is lonely, lost and desperate. He pays the cleaner to stay with him, talk to him and take him out of the hole that his mind is currently in. But the night cleaner wants to just get on with his cleaning, so he can keep his job and keep his ex-wife and three children happy.
When the door is locked we are taken through an uncomfortable forty minutes-or-so when we are never really sure what this man wants from the cleaner. This ambiguity carries on right up to the end despite things being given, promised and stolen.
An expression of the oppression felt under the Brazilian military regime in the 60s, The Assault is a very much an overlooked play in this country. A UK premiere, despite being written in the 60s, this production was an excellent portrayal of morallity gone wrong, the questions people are left with when the society they live in is essentially corrupt and harsh.
The Last Days of Gilda is the one woman story of Gilda, who lives in a Brazilian favelas. Wonderfully performed by Gaël Le Cornec, who recreates a sizzeling kitchen, a slaughter house and several Brazilian boyfriends with just the help of a tea-towel and some old sheets. She tells a tale of drugs prostitution and bitternes, but the bitterness never comes from Gilda. Bright and filled with energy and hope she skips from cooker to table, surrounded by death and explotaion. This is a play filled with hope, yet always realistic about the problems Brazil faces.
All in all some good productions – well worth checking out this Brazilian company in the future, and seeking out those Brazilian playwrights.
