Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Here’s another dose of dramatic delights in store for weeks 4 and 5, both on and off campus. Enjoy!
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre - week 4
"L’enfer, c’est les autres", or, "Hell is other people". One of Sartre’s most famous quotations comes from No Exit, a 1944 existentialist play about the idea of hell. Featuring only four characters, the play opens with a Valet leading three damned souls into a room with no mirrors, no windows and only one door, a room we are led to believe is hell.
The Valet leaves and the door is locked. Each character expects to be tortured for their sins, but no torturer arrives. Hell appears alarming banal. Yet, the strangers soon realise that they have been brought to this room to torture one another. As they are unable to resist the urge to delve into one another’s sins and secrets, the characters fashion their own version of hell whilst desperately seeking redemption.
Posing questions concerning the myriad choices between good and evil that we make in our lifetime, how those decisions we make come back to haunt us and the extent to which we are determined by free will, No Exit promises to leave us with plenty to contemplate…
No Exit will be running from Friday 6 February- Sunday 8 February at the Drama Barn. Doors open 19:30. Tickets will be sold in Vanbrugh Stalls on Wednesday 4 February, 12-2 pm.
Looking for Claire by Sarah Goddard - week 5
‘'Looking for Claire’' is a new, student-written play. Told through flashbacks and memories, the play centres on Michael, a man who looks back on his life to try ascertain the whereabouts of his long-missing love, Claire. His daughter Joanna helps him through the difficulties of wistful nostalgia. A tale of love lost, Looking for Claire advertises itself as a ‘heart-warming tale of easy simplicity’, which aims ‘to entrance and entertain all that see it’, promising to contribute to the high quality of student-written drama here at York.
Looking for Claire will be running from Friday 13 February- Sunday 15th February at the Drama Barn. Doors open 19:30.
Harvest by Richard Bean - week 5
Described by the Telegraph as 'Funny, poignant and with a heart as big as a house…’, Harvest is a comedy-drama by Yorkshire playwright Richard Bean. The play darts through four generations of a Yorkshire farming family battling to defend their livelihood.
The action begins in 1875, when Lord Primrose Agar makes a bet with his tenant farmer Orlando for East Kilham Wold Farm, wagering that his new collie pup will live longer than the 94-year-old Harrison. 13 years later, Agar loses his bet, and presents the farm to the Harrisons.
Jumping forward to 1914, when farm horses were seized for the purposes of the First World War, and again to the hold of supermarkets over today’s farmer, Bean depicts the ups and downs of life in rural England. This tour of Harvest will be the first time the play can be seen outside of London. Catch it while you can!
Harvest will be at the Grand Opera House from Tuesday 10 - Saturday 14 February. Tickets are available from the Box Office on 0844 847 2322 or online.
The Oresteia, a Belt-Up production - week 5
It seems that York’s drama schedule would not be complete without a Belt-Up production of some sort, and in Week 5, the ‘multi-award winning’ troupe bring their take on The Oresteia to the York Theatre Royal. The only surviving example of a trilogy of ancient Greek plays, The Oresteia focuses on the end of the curse placed on the House of Atreus.
The main action of the play centres around the murder of Agamemnon and his concubine Cassandra by Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra. As Clytemnestra defiantly tries to explain her actions, she is slain by her son Orestes. Although Orestes has avenged his father’s death he has done so only by slaying his own mother, and from beyond the grave he will feel his mother’s wrath in what has been described as a ‘relentlessly faced paced reincarnation’ of this classic tragedy. In usual Belt-Up form, this rendering of The Oresteia is sure to be an unpredictable and unmissable production.
The Oresteia will be at the York Theatre Royal from Tuesday 10 February- Saturday 14 February. Tickets are available online.
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