Si no ens paguen, no paguem! (Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!) is a satirical family drama written in 1974 by Nobel prize-winning Italian Dario Fo. In the play, two working class housewives resort to robbery as a means of feeding their poorly paid husbands at a time of economic stress. In this entertaining, updated Catalan version,… Read more »
Tag: culture
REVIEW: Dispara / Agafa Tresor / Repeteix dir. Josep Maria Mestres
Seven interconnected mini-plays, selected and reshuffled from the 16 that comprise Shoot / Get Treasure / Repeat, bring coherence and resonance to Mark Ravenhill‘s satirical text, that explores the effects of war on our personal relationships and public lives. Directed by Josep Maria Mestres and staged at Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure, Dispara / Agafa Tresor / Repeteix is an unflinching, funny and… Read more »
REVIEW: MCBTH (Macbeth) dir. Àlex Rigola
Àlex Rigola’s now slightly notorious MCBTH (Macbeth) (in Catalan) has already disturbed many audience members, though perhaps not in the way that the director intended. Peppered with visual references from ‘popular culture’, (although the term, like the culture, tends to be imposed upon us), there is a carefully cultivated cheapness about the play – from its… Read more »
REVIEW – El Montaplatos (The Dumb Waiter) Animalario
A “free interpretation” of Harold Pinter’s classic play The Dumb Waiter sticks to the original text but reinterprets the playwright’s famous pauses, filling those sinister silences with action. Spanish theatre troupe Animalario, directed by Andrés Lima, turns up the volume on Pinter’s puzzling play, seating the audience on two sides of the stage while its… Read more »
REVIEW: Delacroix vs Goya, battle of the dramatics
round 2 – DELACROIX French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) and Spaniard Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) are utterly distinctive artists, comparable in their contrasts. Each applied extraordinary imaginations to dramatic often violent subject matter, juxtaposing images and colours to excite and disturb. In 1826, as self-imposed Spanish exile Francisco de Goya daubed dark demons on the walls of his… Read more »
WHAT’S ON? Glengarry Glen Ross
Sharp, snazzy adaptation of David Mamet’s brutal comedy, with the ingenious twist of an all-female cast. Best €8 I’ve spent in while. See it next weekend at the Riereta (take gloves). There are surtitles in Catalan.
DRAMATIC EXIT pt.1: the sneak out
There is nothing like a dramatic exit to strike a line through the evening. It’s undignified, childish, and you may be excruciatingly embarrassed afterwards, but for once you’ll have something to write home about. Good cause is important, but so too is to know your own limits. Though the culprit may merely have ‘tipped the… Read more »
REVIEW: Jocular’s Private Eyes
Having suffered 3 + hours of a taxidermied Edward Albee play the night before my point about actors seemed set in stone … that is, until a Jocular Theatre Company production blew it to bits. To claim that Joshua Zamrycki‘s band of five did justice to Steven Dietz’s 1996 play would be wrong. Private Eyes may be… Read more »
DANCE REVIEW: Lemi Ponifasio / MAU
On a slick black stage, stabbed through the heart by a monolithic shard, dance troupe MAU terrified me with a tense, urgent, masterful piece with a throbbing, ritualistic score. You’ll never sleep again. In Birds with Skymirrors, Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio deals with the big issues: our relationship to the environment and to each other, relating… Read more »
Ballets Russes, the show.
Felia Doubrovska is The Firebird (1910) In 1909, a troupe of Russian dancers embarked on a whirlwind 20-year tour of Europe that was to sex-up ballet considerably. Hitherto a fluffy thing stuffed between opera acts, dance became a multidisciplinary multi-sensorial extravaganza that shocked the most enlightened of Parisian… Read more »