Category: Review

La Treva (Time Stands Still): States of Suspension

La Treva (Time Stands Still) by Donald Margulies, dir. Julio Manrique, photo: Guillermo A. Chaia

Precisely timed to chime with World Press Photo, La Treva (Time Stands Still) is a Catalan-language version of Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Donald Margulies‘ stage drama, in which two veteran journalists try to make peace with their homebody selves when trauma forces them to return to Brooklyn from the war in Iraq. Sarah (Clara Segura)… Read more »

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L’inframón: the Dark Side of the Virtual World

L'inframón (The Nether) by Jennifer Haley, at Teatre Lliure Gràcia, Barcelona Sept 22 - Oct 16, 2016. Photo: Ros Ribas.

Sci-fi thriller The Nether (L’inframón), by American playwright Jennifer Haley, is back at Teatre Lliure in Gràcia this autumn after a spell at the Grec Festival in July. The contemporary play, brought to the Catalan stage under the direction of Juan Carlos Martel Bayod, deals with portentous, worrying themes; questioning the sanctity of the virtual realm as a ‘safe… Read more »

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NTGent’s Platonov – Chekhov Unchained!

NTGent / Luk Perceval / Roeger Eigen Producties / Platonov by Anton Chekhov / Photo credit: Phile Deprez

No indignity is spared in this NTGent production of Platonov, directed by the Belgian theatre and film director Luk Perceval. Platonov (its English-given title) is a 105-minute adaptation of an unwieldy early play by Anton Chekhov, written by the Russian between the ages of 18 and 21. Completed in 1878 and with a playtime of around… Read more »

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Splendour (Esplendor) – Abi Morgan’s play of Ice and Fireworks

Esplendor (Splendour) by Abi Morgan, directed by Carme Portaceli. Photo: Albert Armengol

Four women gather in a luxurious residence in an unknown state in civil war. It’s the home of Micheleine and her absent husband, ‘an important man’, whom Katheryn, a foreign photojournalist, has come to shoot. They wait with Katheryn’s young guide and translator Gilma, a hungry woman with greasy fingers, deep pockets and shoes that mud… Read more »

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Toneelgroep Amsterdam – De stille kracht (The Hidden Force)

Toneelgroep Amsterdam stage production of De stille kracht - The Hidden Force. Photo: © Jan Versweyveld

Faithful to the alluring yet foreboding atmosphere of the original novel by Louis Couperus, the Ivo van Hove / Toneelgroep Amsterdam stage production of De stille kracht (The Hidden Force) conjures up the colonial world of the Dutch East Indies as an opulent but decaying paradise, battered by the odd monsoon. The year is 1900, and 100 years… Read more »

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Hatched 2015 – A Journey to the Heart of South Africa

Videostill of 'Hatched' by Robyn Denny (producer) …alerie Momo.jpg

The award-winning South African performance artist and choreographer Mamela Nyamza is the solo dancer in Hatched 2015, a three-screen film installation that she co-directs with the video artist and painter Robyn Denny. The piece is on display at Madrid’s SlowTrack Gallery (9th June to 15th July) in an exhibition curated by Beathur Mgoza Baker, that… Read more »

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En Veu Baixa – The Act of Listening

En Veu Baixa (Quietly) by Owen McCafferty directed by Ferran Madico

Place yourself in Belfast in 2009. Two middle-aged Nordies meet in a pub in the jittery presence of a Polish barman. Their lives are linked by a bomb that one threw there, in 1974, at the height of The Troubles. It blew 6 men up, some literally to bits – one of them was the… Read more »

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Feeding the World – New Images of Africa

Tahir Karmali, Dennis Muraguri, Tonney Mugo: Jua Kali City.

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, an exhibition currently at Barcelona’s CCCB, is the vibrant, visual manifestation of an extensive, on-going research project that brings together the work of 120 artists and designers from all over the continent. Curated by Amelie Klein of the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the show was put together under… Read more »

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Kokoro – An Intervention of Nature

Lali Ayguadé Kokoro

Lali Ayguadé, the acclaimed Barcelona-born dancer-turned-choreographer, brings her first full-length dance production Kokoro to Leicester’s Curve Theatre this Tuesday, January 26th. The piece offers a variation on a theme explored by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in Fractus: how, in a world divided into societies built for individuals, can we confront the pressing need to adapt, to… Read more »

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What’s on? Juicio a una Zorra – A Cry for Justice

Juicio a una zorra, directed by Miguel del Arco, photo © Sergio Parra

A middle-aged, peroxide blonde Helen of Troy staggers into a neon-lit bar and pours herself a drink. So begins the Spanish-language play Juicio a una Zorra, a powerful and passionate monologue delivered by acclaimed actress Carmen Machi (Hable con Ella, Abrazos Rotos), on at Teatre Goya (Barcelona) from 19th – 31st January 2016. Director Miguel Del Arco wrote the piece to give… Read more »

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