The Land of the Living

“Was Mike Tweddle, Creative Director of the Oxford Playhouse, thinking of the famous line about the self-referential nature of theatre in Hamlet when he made the bold choice of staging Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—the first in-house production at the Playhouse in 20 years? As Shakespeare wrote: \"...as \'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.\" And boy, did that happy, smart, bright, and polite audience meet itself after what felt like a three-hour “Walls Viennetta” moment of unrelenting domestic tension. Awkward, hysterical laughs ricocheted around the auditorium from time to time as the audience got comfortable—in a kind of uncomfortable way—gawping at the jaw-droppingly torturous, drunken antics of two academic couples in the post-party, late-night drawing room of Edward Albee’s imagination. Dreadfully good. Later, they gave it a standing ovation.”

“My phone vibrated with a text of the SMS variety. A rarity in our now WhatsApp dominated world. Your tickets for The Virgins today, it said. My excitement levels rose. This is the closest I’ve ever come to receiving a sext. ‘The Virgins’ is the second play I’ve seen by Miriam Battye at Soho Theatre; the first was called \'Strategic Love Play\' which I enjoyed and would recommend reading. Love and sex are evidently favoured lines of enquiry for Battye, and all teenagers everywhere… The teenagers in this show, three girls and two boys, are hanging out at home. The girls are preparing to go ‘out out’ and the boys are gaming. Enter stage left Anya, ‘the hottest, coolest, loudest girl in school’. Her social currency is sky high: she’s in the year above and sans V-plates. She is (seemingly) self-assured and (definitely) a bully. Watching her operate is terrifying. Everyone knew a girl like this growing up. Anya leads the other girls’ sexual education with the kindness of a fascist dictator. I felt like an old matron watching on, desperate to tell the teenagers that no one knows what their doing and that things like practicing-fellatio-on-your-toothbrush will become excellent party anecdotes for them in a decade’s time. I loved the set and the show’s premise and was very happy to see both female and male awkwardness in tandem. But despite being only 85 minutes this show felt too long and could have done with some fast-forwarding. A bit like losing one’s virginity.”

“A woman slips away from the party for a moment of blissful solitude. Her champagne-coloured gown wafts gently in the breeze. Behind, long white drapes billow, blown by a large fan offstage - I am reminded of the dream scene in Singing in The Rain, one of my earliest impressions of the beauty that the body’s movement can evoke. The dancer is in her own world, enjoying the shapes her body makes to a melodic electric guitar. This was one of many moments that sparked pure joy during the two and a half hour performance of Pina Bausch’s Sweet Mambo at Sadlers Wells. Throughout, the audience is treated to all the many characters one meets at a party, and learns of their loves, laughter, and woes. Whilst the three male dancers play their part in the performance, it is the women who take centre stage and remind the audience of all the spectrum of emotions, personalities, and experiences that we hold within one being. There’s sex, there’s conflict, and a whole load of comedy to boot. This is performance theatre at its finest. The dancers intersect fluid group sequences with witty monologues about what it means to be with someone else, and to also be alone. Bausch is an innovator combining movement, music and spoken word to evoke joy and anguish in equal measure. She challenges modern-day perceptions of beauty and strength, bringing together a cast of older, experienced dancers who prove that age does not limit the impact you can have on stage (in a dance performance world where we often see youth centred above all). I adored Sweet Mambo. I laughed, I cried, and left the theatre with a warm glow and sense of possibility. If you have the chance to, go. You quite simply must!”