LOVE DANCE? LOVE FESTIVAL
THEATRE
Scottish Ballet: A Streetcar Named Desire
list.co.uk/theatre Events are listed by city, then alphabetically by venue. Submit listings at least 16 days before publication to theatre@list.co.uk. Listings are compiled by Laura Ennor. ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry
GLASGOW
■ ADELAIDES 209 Bath Street, 248 4970. The Phantom of the Opera Thu 29–Sat 31 Mar, 7.30pm. £17.50 (£15; family £55). A new production of the popular musical from Transylvania Productions, featuring Josh Kemp’s contemporary score and Joseph Taylor’s book and lyrics.
■ THE ARCHES 253 Argyle Street, 565 1000.
✽✽ Behaviour Until Sat 28 Apr, times vary. £5–£12. An intelligently cool
festival of theatre, built around The Arches’ sturdy reputation for pushing genre and art form boundaries. See show listings, below. We Are Gob Squad and So Are You: Adventures in Remote Lecturing Sat 31 Mar, 7pm. £12 (£9). A performance lecture from British/German arts collective Gob Squad, dissecting the modern-day mantras about being yourself, following your dreams and reaching for the stars, and asking just what that self or those stars actually are. Part of Behaviour. The Mermaid Show Sat 31 Mar, 8.30pm. Sun 1 Apr, 7.30pm. £12 (£9). A
Theatre new, viscerally physical piece from opinion-dividing New York performance artist Ann Liv Young. Part of Behaviour. Inconsistent Whisper Sat 7 Apr, 4pm. £3. Torsten Lauschmann and Red Note Ensemble present a performance installation looking at the problems of miscommunication. Part of Behaviour. Maybe If You Choreograph Me, You Will Feel Better Thu 12–Sat 14 Apr, times vary. £7. Tania El Khoury offers herself up for direction in this piece of performance art. Via a dictaphone, a male audience member directs El Khoury with commands either scripted or not, in a bid to explore the relationship between female performance and the male gaze. Part of Behaviour. Thatcher’s Children Wed 18, Fri 20 & Sat 21 Apr, 7.15pm; Thu 19 Apr, 7pm; Sun 22 Apr 2pm. £11 (£8; all tickets £5 on Wed 18 Apr). Physical theatre piece exploring the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. Part of Behaviour. Kieran Hurley: Beats Wed 18, Fri 20 & Sat 21 Apr, 7.15pm; Thu 19 Apr, 7pm; Sun 22 Apr 2pm. £11 (£8; all tickets £5 on Wed 18 Apr). Part of Behaviour. See Stage Whispers, page 109. White Rabbit Red Rabbit Wed 18, Fri 20 & Sat 21 Apr, 7.15pm. New play from young Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour, dealing with the experience of a generation and the nature of live art. An Arches Brick Award winner. Part of Behaviour. Collecting Fireworks Thu 19–Sat 21 Apr, times vary. £6 (£4). A recorded archive of people’s whispered recollections of theatre events. Part of Behaviour.
PREVIEW REVIVAL FURTHER THAN THE FURTHEST THING Dundee Rep, Tue 24 Apr–Sat 5 May
James Brining, artistic director of Dundee Rep, has a rule of thumb about choosing plays. ‘When you have a strong sense of how to do it and how it should look,’ he says, then it’s time. And if this coincides with the members of the repertory company fitting the cast list, then ‘the stars are all in alignment’. And so it turns out that a daring production of Zinnie Harris’s Further Than the Furthest Thing will be Brining’s last show in Dundee before he heads off to his new job at West Yorkshire Playhouse. He’s known Further Than . . . since it was first performed by the Tron
Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2000. Then, in 2006, Liz Ogilvie’s DCA show Bodies of Water gave him the visual framework. ‘Her work is all about the reflections of light on water. Somehow, the two fused in my head.’ Organising a rehearsed reading in Dublin, showed him how a piece written in patois, set in Tristan da Cuhna and then Southampton, could work without a team of accent coaches. This production will have, he says, ‘a very particular approach.’ The Rep’s
wide stage will be extended to include a pool of water in the auditorium, with the actors on islands. Staging aside, Brining will play Harris’s text straight. ‘When you have a non-naturalistic, poetic environment you need some naturalistic elements. There has to be a bit of reality, otherwise it would be too much abstract symbolism. The story couldn’t get through.’ (Anna Burnside)
Trying to leave a troubled past behind her, fading southern belle Blanche DuBois moves into her sister Stella’s New Orleans apartment. Stella’s brutish husband Stanley sees that Blanche is not what she appears to be, and sets out to destroy her.
Set to a specially commissioned jazz-inspired score by award- winning composer Peter Salem, Scottish Ballet presents A Streetcar Named Desire in the 65th anniversary year of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The Company continues to push the boundaries of modern ballet in a collaboration with American theatre and film director Nancy Meckler and international choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, creating a powerful infusion of drama and dance.
To be in with the chance of winning a pair of tickets to the opening night of A Streetcar Named Desire, just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us: Who wrote A Streetcar Named Desire?
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh 18 - 21 April Box Office: 0131 529 6000 www.festivaltheatre.org.uk
Competition closes on 13 April 2012. There is no cash alternative. Usual List rules apply.
29 Mar–26 Apr 2012 THE LIST 113