Charing Cross Theatre Archives - Page 3 of 3

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Charing Cross Theatre

16Nov

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Charing Cross Theatre

In rural Pennsylvania, Vanya and his adopted sister Sonia live a quiet life of Chekhovian ennui and bitterness, after having cared for their parents in the family home. Their bickering is interspersed with hankering after a better, more fulfilled life and thoughts of what might have been. Into this pit of despair and coffee comes their hand-grenade of a sister, Masha, an escapee from the countryside who fled to the bright lights of Hollywood, achieving a degree of fame and fortune, and revelling in her perceived superiority. The three siblings seem destined to live out the lives of their namesakes, throwing in references to The Cherry Orchard (not really an orchard) and The Seagull (here a wild turkey), with misery and calamity foretold by Cassandra, their psychic and Voodoo-loving cleaner...

Pippin – Charing Cross Theatre

The Charing Cross Theatre was the perfect venue for this latest revival of Pippin. Written in 1972 with Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a Book by Roger O.Hirson. The piece itself is very interesting as it follows a mystery performance group who tell the story of Pippin who longs to find something to fulfil his life. This piece can be interpreted in different and interesting ways. Director Steven Dexter has placed Pippin in a 60’s, flower power environment, where you are immediately transported to somewhere in the middle of nowhere where the performance group are. As soon as you walk into the space you are engulfed by 60’s tapestries hanging all over the theatre walls. And incense burning which further transported the audience away from London in July to somewhere in America in ...

Berkoff’s Women – At Yours

Linda Marlowe has been working with Steven Berkoff since time immemorial and is often referred to as his muse, with this resurrection of her one-woman show – filmed at Charing Cross Theatre and directed by Josie Lawrence - perfectly suited to the performance constraints of the current pandemic as it provides a theatrical exploration of sensuality, revenge, pathos, heart-breaking loneliness, and riotous humour. The show is very simply performed with no set – just an elegant black dress and a chair with an occasional prop added for effect as necessary – as through a series of monologues Marlowe uses the prose of Berkoff to explore the many emotions of women with excerpts from his plays ‘Agamemnon’, ‘Decadence’, ‘East’, ‘Greek’, ‘Kvetch’, and ‘Sturm Und Drang’, and whilst there is li...