Traverse Theatre Archives - Page 7 of 15

My English Persian Kitchen – Traverse Theatre

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

My English Persian Kitchen – Traverse Theatre

World Premier A unique play involving the live creation (and ultimate consumption) of a popular Iranian soup dish, ash-e-reshteh, which is, we are told, dished out on the streets of Iran every day, as common as Ice cream. Cultural differences are at the centre of this story by award-winning writer Hannah Khalil. Adapted from the real life story of Atoosa Sepehr as she flees from Iran to escape an abusive husband, and her subsequent journey to settle in England. Isabella Nefar (Salome, National Theatre) welcomes us into Traverse 2 as though to a dinner party, smells of chopped onions, herbs and spices waft through the space. There is a buzz of conversation. Food, a bridge of the senses, cultures, the very essence of our being, and within the ceremony of sharing food, the hand of f...

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

In Two Minds – Traverse Theatre

Joanne Ryan’s delicately observed portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship complicated by mental illness is beautifully brought to life by Pom Boyd (The Dry), as Mother and Karen McCartney (A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings) as Daughter. In Two Minds finds insight in the darkness, humour in the pain, and tenderness in difficult family dynamics. But don’t expect dramatic revelations or grand gestures, its simply not that kind of play. Sarah Jane Scaife’s unhurried production for Dublin’s Fishamble is light and practical and dwells on the ordinary rather than the extraordinary, a semi-autobiographical scenario, of Ryan’s relationship with her own mother. Set during the extension of her house, Mother has to share a small studio flat with her grown up Daughter for howev...

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

BATSHIT – Traverse Theatre

BATSHIT is an unexpectedly funny, but also deeply intimate story of female madness. Created and performed by Leah Shelton (AU) and directed by Olivier award-winning performance artist Ursula Martinez (UK), this is a portrait cum-memoir of Leah’s grandmother Gwen, who was incarcerated for seeking personal independence from her husband in 1960s Australia. It looks like Gwen just didn’t like her husband very much anymore, but in this era that constituted a mental illness which required serious medical interventions. Using Gwen’s actual medical records from the period, real voice over clips, video clips and television interviews, this highly technical show transports the audience back in time to consider what now seems clear, from this evidence, the sexual inequality, of a deepl...

Natalie Palamides: WEER – Traverse Theatre

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Natalie Palamides: WEER – Traverse Theatre

Clown princess Natalie Palamides has become a force to be reckoned with, scoring huge acclaim with her first Edinburgh outing, Laid, in 2017, which won her Best Newcomer award, and Nate (Netflix special 2020). Last year she directed Bill O’Neill’s superb The Amazing Banana Brothers, a Fringe highlight. Any new work by this performer is now very much on the radar. So, it was an absolute delight to see that the 34-year-old LA-based performer was returning this year with a solo show to world premiere at the Traverse. The show does not disappoint. It’s a hilarious hot-mess of clown mayhem in the style of a ’90s-style romcom, which stars Palamides as a pair of star cross'd lovers, having a quarrel at a party cabin in the woods, before midnight as the millennium fast approaches. Y2K ma...

13Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Cyrano – Traverse Theatre

European Premier Virginia Gay writes and stars in this acclaimed Aussie deconstruction of the classic romance. Portrayed as a gen-Z, gender-flipped take on Edmond Rostand’s classic story of a shy poet who lends his words to a handsome young man to woo Roxanne, the object of both their desires. The first act of this play promises much, as the chorus, a hilarious double act of Tessa Wong and David Tarkenter, play their unnamed roles like an attentive PA and an aging thespian on his way to a King Lear rehearsal, to a tee. The talented and versatile Tanvi Virmani also wanders onto the stage at one point like a deer in the headlights. The trio are highly amusing as they never leave the stage and query what they are doing in this play, bickering continuously or offering unhelpful advi...

13Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Sound Inside – Traverse Theatre

Bookish brilliance! The new Dead Poets Society. Nominated for six Tony Awards, this UK premiere of Adam Rapp’s spellbinding play stars Merchant Ivory’s Madeleine Potter and The Kite Runner’s (Broadway) Eric Sirakian. From director of Psychodrama Matt Wilkinson. Beverley Baird is the unmarried and childless, cat lady, Yale creative writing professor, who tells her students to write with economy and let the reader’s imagination do the heavy lifting. Writing that your character has the ‘eyes of a star-faced mole’, or ‘a mean mouth, like a half-healed axe scar’, will tell your reader more than a page and a half full of flowery description. In reality, she is resigned to the fact that creative writing is all but dead and that her students are more interested in social media than Dostoe...

12Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

So Young – Traverse Theatre

World Premier From the celebrated writer of Decky Does a Bronco and I Can Go Anywhere, Douglas Maxwell’s So Young is an often hilarious, but equally pathos-tinged coming-of-middle-age tale. 40-somethings Davie, Liane, Milo and Helen were once inseparable, three of them studied at teacher training together, but that all changed when Helen died from COVID. Set up as a classic sitcom, like a latter-day kilted Abigail’s Party, nicely constructed traditional sets transport us, with the swish of a curtain, from the bedroom of long-time married couple Liane (Luciano McEvoy) and Dave (Andy Clark) to the faux-chic lounge of recently bereaved pal Milo (Nicholas Karimi) and his new, much younger, girlfriend Greta (Yang Harris). The cliché of the older man’s ch...

13Jun

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Lie Low – Traverse Theatre

‘Lie Low’ is a theatrical jewel. This is theatre at its best, a production which deals with serious issues but still manages to be hugely entertaining and genuinely funny. If you possibly can, go and see this amazing show. You won’t be disappointed. ‘Lie Low’ is brilliantly written by Irish playwright, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth. The script won the Best Theatre Script award in 2023 from the Writers Guild of Ireland. It’s energetic, funny, profound, imaginative, inventive and deeply moving. Smyth’s script is superbly directed by Oisín Kearney. The production is perfectly paced and keeps the audience on the edge of its seats throughout the 70 minutes of the show. Charlotte McCurry plays Faye, a woman in her thirties who has been suffering from nightmares and insomnia following a violent ...

7Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Last Pearl – Traverse Theatre

This is the last stop on the ’24 tour for The Last Pearl, via Sligo, Dublin and Glasgow. It is a unique show which almost defies review in the theatrical sense, with no words at all but still plenty to relish. The Blue Raincoat Theatre Co.’s voyage started in 2016, hailing from Sligo, Ireland, clearly with an eye to the horizon, devising, amongst others, new works on explorers Shackleton and Darwin. This is a dreamy production which feels at times more like a yoga session for the senses than a theatrical experience. Some exquisite visual memories await the viewer, enhanced by appropriate sound affects; the quiet sea, the sandpiper, the whisper of wind or, in the turn of a moment, the howling gale and the lashing waves. Here, in the opening scene a long strip of fine silk cloth is tra...

5Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Storm Lantern – Traverse Theatre

They say partnerships are never equal, and such was the case here tonight in this generally well-executed three-hander from Edinburgh youth theatre outfit, Strange Town. This short play follows the true story of Sophia Scholl, the anti-nazi political activist, whose life was terminated prematurely, by guillotine, at the age of just 21, in 1943. Scholl was arrested with her brother Hans after scattering war protest leaflets from the top floor of the atrium of Munich University. Writer Duncan Kidd focuses primarily on the friendship between Sophia and Gisela Schertling, her good friend of several years, who is also romantically involved with her brother Hans. The third character in the piece is Nazi Interrogator, Robert Mohr. Let’s talk about the best bits first. Rebecca Forsyth is ...