A Doll's House
- This is a show and a moral lesson that need to be told, and CandyKing Theatre do it brilliantly. (Docklands 24)
- This is a revolutionary statement about money and marriage delievered in the ancien regime language of the well-made play. (Time Out)
- Kate Dion-Richard's (Nora) transformation from the carefree housewife of Act I to the developed woman we see in Act III was a delight to watch.
- Makes you realise the importance of the piece and why it's necessary to produce it again and again. (extra extra)
- This is the second production I have seen from CandyKing Theatre, and like its predessor 'Look back in Anger,' it was well polished, well acted and well directed. Brett Harris's portrayal of the husband Torvald was shaded and patterned with mood and depth and balanced well with his wife's joviality and seeming flightiness. Both lead actors gave singularly adept performances. (Theatre World)
- Kate Dion-Richard as Nora is captivating, oozing stage presence and integrity. The volte-face between act one's vain immature Nora and act two's heroically honest and dignified Nora is difficult to pull off, but Dion-Richard manages to do it with some style and succeeds in evoking both sympathy and respect. Brett Harris's Torvald is suitably sleazy and deluded with Jose Domingos' calm, melancholic Dr Rank giving a good counterpoint. (Greenwich Magazine)
- Candy King Theatre's strong productio showcases excellent performances from Kate Dion-Richard as Nora and Brett Harris as Torvald. A new translation by Ida Forde makes the script feel fresh and modern, while Marialuisa Chiorando's direction allows the actors room to demonstrate some electric moments of drama. (Gravesend Reporter)
The Serious Business of Choosing a Mate
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Remote Goat
"The Serious Business of Choosing A Mate," was an interesting prospect: An evening of two one act plays, both about trying to find your perfect partner. You have to agree, there's definitely appeal in that sentiment! The show comprises a new piece of writing, namely "Fairy Tale," by Jeremy Green, and a comedy (yes, you read right COMEDY) by Anton Chekhov - "The Proposal". The tongue in cheek title linked these two pieces together neatly.
"Fairy Tale" is about a lonely princess, waiting for her perfect prince. Emma West plays the self obsessed, desperate princess hilariously, with good comedy timing with brilliant facial expressions. When the castle is invaded by a modern army, trying to "liberate" the country, the princess thinks she's found her perfect man...only to be disappointed...then be excited again when she meets a dashing hero Barabas (played by Alexander D'Andrea) who is not everything he seems. The pace sometimes lulled, but the writing was very funny, and the piece built to a satisfying end.
"The Proposal" tells the tale of a landowner coming to propose to a woman he doesn't love, but finding himself at the 'critical' age of thirty, and having no-one else to marry, does the deed, although every conversation turns into an argument, in which he suffers terrible 'palpitations.' The character of the hypochondriac Ivan Vasilevitch was a perfect showcase for Brett Harris to demonstrate his immense talent for comedy and transformation. (He played a soldier in the previous piece). This is pure farce, and whilst it should be overblown, the director did an excellent job in making sure that it was not just shouting and screaming - whilst there was a great deal of that, it was perfectly balenced with the right pauses and quieter moments.
Donal Cox played Stepan Stepanovitch, and his performance of the elderly father wishing to marry off his daughter was imbued with insightful physicality.
I enjoyed this production immensely. It was an original, hilarious, brilliantly acted and directed piece of theatre.
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Londonist
CandyKing Theatre produces classic plays alongside new writing, as in their double-bill The Serious Business of Choosing a Mate. New writing from Jeremy Green in Fairytale and Anton Chekhov's rarely seen The Proposal form a light-hearted, amusing, slightly uneven evening. There are romantic misunderstandings, dashed expectations, a little slapstick and a long, sideways look at love and relationships, with no certainty that a knight in shining armour is any bloody good after all.
Fairytale is a traditional Princess in a tower storyline, rudely interrupted by a soldier from our grubby world of conflict and 'liberation'. The sparring between Emma West and Brett Harris contrasting his military bravado with her annoyance going off-script recalls Shrek (not a bad thing) and the two rise to their culture clash with gusto. However, the comedy is diluted somewhat by interjections on modern war, coming across as muddled in terms of intent. Is it portraying romance as a myth, 'liberation' as another word for 'invasion', what women want vs. what men want?
Though the script lacks sharpness, the cast are enjoyable, especially Alexander D'Andrea as the traditional prince swooping in halfway to vanquish the soldier and seeming to rescue the day. Then he reveals he follows the Dragon, not a beast but an invisible entity within him... so is he saving her for love, or for his cult? Romance is not dead but it's nearly there.
The Proposal is far more focused and the cast are considerably more confident in tackling the power play, comic misunderstandings and enjoyable, irresistible slapstick of a botched marriage proposal. Brett Harris as Ivan Vassilevitch clutches at his chest, crying out what lovers say - 'My heart! My heart!' while clearly having a stroke, which nicely underlines the absurdity of the situation. It's delightful to watch and a well-chosen counterpoint to Fairytale. Choosing a mate may be a serious business, but in this double-bill, it can be funny too.
Look Back in Anger
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indieLondon
JIMMY Porter may be hard to stomach but his relentless anger is as relevant now as it was back in 1956 when John Osbourne’s play was first performed.Back then Porter’s insistent rants against the establishment and the ruling classes heralded an era of angry young men, in life and art, disgusted by the status quo. They fought each other, got the dole, worked for little pay, dyed their hair, listened to punk and rioted.
The angry young men of today are as discontent and “out of joint” as Porter but not as impotent. They still fight, get the dole and work for little money but they also blow themselves up, carry knives and, increasingly, use them.
The CandyKing Theatre’s production of Look Back in Anger does not tinker with the play in attempt to “modernise” it. Yet it feels terrifyingly relevant. This is down to the energetic performance of the play from which the weary voice of Porter shouts angrily, refusing to be dismissed.
Porter sees the world and dislikes it because there’s no clear place for him in it. In his anger, he takes on all the injustices of the world that excludes him and struggles to find an outlet for the pain he feels as a result.
Brett Harris is a tireless Porter. He perfectly catches the rhythm of Porter’s anger and sustains it for the entire performance, never once letting on that being Jimmy is almost certainly exhausting. In fact, both he and Fiona Rose Boylan, who played Porter’s wife, Alison, looked shattered at the curtain call!
Brilliant performances aside, Maria Chiorando’s intense production owes a lot to the tiny space of the Greenwich Playhouse which reinforces the term “kitchen sink drama”.
Osbourne’s play digs deep into the heart of Porter’s anger into a permanent and wrenching sadness, which, in a space like the Playhouse, is inflicted on the audience, refusing them the comforting barrier of detachment physically available in a larger theatre.
Though Chiorando’s production was not easy to watch, it still managed to be humorous in parts. The actors playing Cliff Lewis and Helena Charles were brilliant buffers to Porter’s stinging jabs, both refusing to believe that he had no sense of humour.
However, what’s most poignant about the production is that it had such a short run. It deserved to be longer.
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The Docklands 24
ANGER, adultery and anarchy - it sounds like a plot straight out of Albert Square.
Instead it was the theme for a play which detailed the world of an unhappy man and his desperate attempts to break free from his surroundings.
This play is more than 60 years old, but every bit as relevant to 21st century audiences as ever.
And credit should go to Maria Chiorando's production - this is a tough play to endure, but it was gripping and believable throughout.
Number one target for Jimmy's wrath was his wife Alison, almost always ironing or cooking, who he claims is stupid, boring and unfulfilling.
At one point he even claimed he wants her to get pregnant and lose her baby - made more acerbic by the fact she is already pregnant with his baby.
He has little regard for faithful but dim companion Cliff, and even less for Alison's friends and family, all of whom belong to a superior class to him.
Jimmy was a despicable character, but occasionally allowed a chink of vulnerability into his armour, not least when he described the death of his father.
But his world is about to be transformed by the arrival of Alison's formidable best friend, the snooty Helena.
Brett Harris in particular was brilliantly sinister and spiteful as Jimmy, launching into impressive monologues with menace.
Backed up by a strong supporting cast, he prowled and growled but found little escape from the repressive world in which he was trapped.
The conclusion was not totally satisfactory - it's not easy to understand why the characters chose the paths they do.
But that's no fault of this production, which produced an excellent evening of thought-provoking drama.
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News Shopper Online
Written in 1956, John Osborne's Look Back in Anger captured the frustration of a generation of young men with no great causes to fight for.Born too late to become a hero by fighting in the Second World War, the protagonist Jimmy surrounds himself with a flat as dingy and claustrophobic as the trenches and a wife and friend he can verbally battle each day.
The minimalist set of the production at Greenwich Playhouse perfectly captured this claustrophobia and poverty.
The tight space the tattered armchairs and dining table occupied, along with the darkness surrounding them, suggested there was nothing for the characters beyond their grim flat.
One of the themes of the play is the idea the characters choose to suffer. Perhaps because they believe they deserve to suffer like their parents did during the war, perhaps because they believe a life without suffering is empty.
Whatever their reasons, Jimmy and his wife Alison, along with their respective best friends Cliff and Helena, all choose to confine themselves in the flat and violently argue with each other.
Lesser actors would have made it seem the characters argue purely because they dislike each other, but Brett Harris and Fiona Rose Boylan conveyed the twisted pleasure Jimmy and Alison take from their marriage of suffering.
Although Harris is small in stature, his performance was huge, with frustration and rage behind his every word and action. Yet he avoided making Jimmy a one-dimensional caricature of anger by showing the love he has for his wife in the brief pauses in their arguments.
Boylan gave a measured performance as Alison, an upper class girl who has chosen to abandon her privileged roots to slum it with Jimmy.
She captured the conflicting feelings of love and hate Alison has for him by subtly adjusting the tone of her voice and expression on her face. At times she looked at him with pure hate, and her voice echoed it, but a moment later her eyes and voice were full of love for Jimmy.
Philip John and Laura Corcoran also gave rounded performances, showing a range of emotions which made Cliff and Helena more than just secondary characters.
The small theatre at Greenwich Playhouse, which places audience on the stage, literally inches from the actors, meant it was more like screen acting for the cast, as the audience had a close-up view of their every facial twitch.
At times this was too much for the young cast, as they struggled to hold the correct expression. But director Maria Chiorando made the right choice in allowing the actors to be exposed and it added a vulnerability to the characters which made them seem more real.
This created an emotional bond between the audience and the characters which made Look Back in Anger an overall excellent production.
