This Catalan adaptation of British playwright Hattie Naylor’s multilayered play Going Dark is an understated yet cosmically ambitious production that transforms the Espai Lliure into a planetarium; a claustrophobic yet mentally expansive dark space, where the wonders of the universe are projected onto a stage dressed up as moon’s surface. With significantly fewer resources than… Read more »
It is autumn, the trees are already bare and the apples ripe; in fact, in this Catalan production of Nell Leyshon’s Comfort Me With Apples they are positively gleaming: an impassioned red, a vivid green, and that strange pale Fuji variety that taste like soap. The plentiful presence of the fruit, tumbling from the heavens… Read more »
Featuring a breathtaking performance by Ariadna Gil, this Catalan theatre adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre distances itself from the wild Yorkshire moors, and reimagines the north as an anonymous lobby, with a grand piano and four identical doors, reflected ad infinitum in big mirrors at each end. Gil plays the lead in a permanent state of… Read more »
The shocks and infidelities of history and memory are explored in Història, a small format theatre production brought to Barcelona’s Espai Lliure after a successful run at Sala Beckett. This narratively and visually engaging piece is the work of Catalan playwright Jan Vilanova Claudín in collaboration with director and actor Pau Roca, and features strong… Read more »
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 »
The Italian director Ettore Scola died last month. Probably the most internationally famous of his films was Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day), a domestic love story starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, set on the occasion of Adolf Hitler’s visit to Benito Mussolini’s Rome in 1938. The film was released in 1977, and won a Golden Globe and was nominated… Read more »
In its fourth edition performing arts festival Sâlmon (November 26 to December 5) stamps its identity on the international festival circuit as both socially relevant and visually innovative. From a showcase for dancers in a European framework, the festival has graduated into a manifestation of new collaborative work by unconventional Latin American, southern European and… Read more »
