With/For/About 2020
We have been living through months of online-intensity. Since the beginning of lockdown in late March, most of us have moved our lives into the virtual sphere, seeing 3-D humans less and less, communicating
Dangerous Contagions: Desire, Infection, Misogyny
Uncle Vanya, Ghosts and When the Crows Visit There is a long history of contagion as a metaphor for the proliferation of desire in theatre. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Benvolio advises Romeo to
Conversations on Care and/in the Community: Part II
43 Gordon Square, Birkbeck, University of London 6th June 2019 ‘Conversations on Care and/in the Community’ invited researchers and writers from a number of disciplines to engage in a series of conversations surrounding these
Conversations on Care and/in the Community
Conversations on Care and/in the Community 12.30 – 6.30 Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square, Birkbeck, University of London 6th June 2019 Experiences and practices of care have changed dramatically in the past three decades.
Can performance care?
The Death and Performance Symposium at Sick! Theatre Festival, University of Salford Being seen ‘Death’, Steve Eastwood suggests, ‘is the final representational taboo.’ He is talking about his film Island, a documentary which he
I’m a Phoenix, Bitch
Bryony Kimmings is talking to her critical inner voice. ‘Haven’t we seen enough theatre shows about metal mothers?’ it says with a leer. It’s a man’s voice, specifically the voice of a male theatre
The Heroine and her Double: Summer and Smoke
In many ways, director Rebecca Frecknall’s retelling of Summer and Smoke, which recently ended its west end run at the Duke of York’s Theatre, was masterful. Frecknall took a rarely staged work by
Illness as metaphor II: Ear for eye
I ended last month by suggesting that we need works of art which strip illness bare of its metaphors and give truth value to both its social conditions and the testimonies of those affected.
Illness as Metaphor I: The Wild Duck
The first in a series of posts considering the metaphorisation of illness in contemporary performances. In 1978, Susan Sontag famously warned her readers of the dangers of treating illness as metaphor. Reflecting on the
‘How shall I speak again?’ Deafinitely Theatre’s 4.48 Psychosis
Waiting at the bar in the New Diorama Theatre before seeing Deafinitely Theatre’s production of 4.48 Psychosis I am presented with the first difficulty I will have reviewing this play. There is a hubbub