For three nights in a row last week I went to see art. That's the way it happens, with weeks of no going outs at all and then they all come along together.
On Wednesday I went up to Sadler's Wells to see Matthew Bourne's 'Play Without Words'. I saw it on its original run at the National Theatre in 2003 and it's the same production that has been revived as part of Matthew's 25th anniversary celebration. 'Play Without Words' is exactly that - a play without words. It's easy to follow the narrative and you can follow the story as it unfolds in front of you. Or can you?
The thing I like about 'Play Without Words' is that there are multiple depictions of the characters on stage at the same time so you can almost choose which narrative you want to follow. The lead character is Anthony who moves into his trendy house (in Chelsea I'm guessing) and he's played by three dancers on stage at the same time so we get the authoritative Anthony, the weak-willed Anthony and the inbetween. They then react to their girlfriend in different ways (played by three dancers with different characters). It's fascinating watching the different couplings and how they interact together. It's a very clever mechanism.
The show is based on the film 'The Servant' from the early '60s so we have lots of swinging sixties dancing, covert homosexual liaisons and coyness about sex. It's a very entertaining show and well worth seeing.
On Thursday I went to the Soho Theatre to see Geo Wyeth in the small cabaret space downstairs. I saw Geo at the Soho Theatre four years ago (with Justin Bond and Our Lady J) when he went under the name of Novice Theory and I decided he was someone to watch. Novice Theory was a little waif with an accordion but Geo has grown up and matured and is confident in his own art.
The show was a mixture of music and performance art. Geo came on with his shirt pulled up around his shoulders and his trousers round his ankles with a cushion tied across his face with a belt. He staggered round drunk and got down off the stage with his keyboards to serenade us with some sound. At one point he unfolded a large sheet of polythene that he then spread over us as a tent and kept moving the tent from one side of the audience to the other as he recited a poem.
Geo's words and music are often quite complex and he uses his body and voice to give them additional power. He's a bit of a fidgiter - he wasn't still for a moment. While playing the piano he kept moving to stand up and then sit back down and his legs couldn't keep still while he played the guitar sitting on a stool. He brought out some amazing sounds from the guitar.
He was only on for just over an hour for this show (there were two other shows after his finished, including one by Eddie Izzard) and it was well worth seeing him. His new album, 'Alien Tapes' has just been released so it's worth tracking it down and giving it a listen.
My final show last week was Penny Arcade's 'Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!' at the Arcola Tent in Dalston. It's subtitled, 'A passionate celebration of sex, freedom and art' and has been on the go for 20 years in different cities around the globe. Penny is now 62 and unrepentant, free with tales of her past, people she's known, the tribulations of being a faghag and telling tales of the financial realities of being a whore. The four words of the title of the show punctuate the show to good effect.
The show started at 7:30pm with half an hour of erotic dancing from a group of dancers who could do amazing things with their bodies - my favourite was the pole dancer who just sat at the top of her pole without holding on at all. Clothing was in the style of skanty.
Penny came on at 8:00pm and was on stage more or less until about 10:45pm with a half-time break for a trip to the bar and dancing on the stage. I suppose the attraction of this show depends on your age and outlook. Penny is 10 years older than me and has lived the bohemian life - and still seems to from the sound of it. I liked her scene playing the receptionist in a brothel and then playing a prostitute discussing her motivations for embracing her trade. I liked her tirade against the 'Guardian' reviewer that dared to call the show old fashioned due to her section about HIV and AIDS in the '80s. That was part of her world in the '80s and shouldn't be lost simply because things have moved on. That seems to be something she's quite keen on, preserving the 'underground' landscape she grew up in and inhabited from the '60s till today. If you lose your shared history where are you?
We were invited to dance on the stage and I didn't. In the last section Penny came on stage to dance and slowly remove her clothes while we heard and watched a video of someone quoting a Lenny Bruce sequence about censorship. When she removed her bra some of the gays behind me thought they were in an American talk show and started whooping so she silenced them with a wave of her hand and a thumb towards the screen - listen to what's being said, she signed. And her stripping continued till she was naked. It was at that point I thought, 'ok, I didn't dance. but if she asked us, would I strip?' and I'm not sure what my response would be.
I'm very pleased I saw this show. It's not for everyone, I suspect, but it worked for me. I particularly liked the sequence when the lights were turned off and she gradually walked round the set blowing out candles as she told us tales and celebrated the freedom of all of us being equal in the dark. The show has now closed at the Arcola Tent but will re-open on 8 August in the Old Vic Tunnels. I think I'll go to see her again.
An added bonus was seeing @dawnamberharvey spin the choons for the show and get name-checked in the programme!
On Wednesday I went up to Sadler's Wells to see Matthew Bourne's 'Play Without Words'. I saw it on its original run at the National Theatre in 2003 and it's the same production that has been revived as part of Matthew's 25th anniversary celebration. 'Play Without Words' is exactly that - a play without words. It's easy to follow the narrative and you can follow the story as it unfolds in front of you. Or can you?The thing I like about 'Play Without Words' is that there are multiple depictions of the characters on stage at the same time so you can almost choose which narrative you want to follow. The lead character is Anthony who moves into his trendy house (in Chelsea I'm guessing) and he's played by three dancers on stage at the same time so we get the authoritative Anthony, the weak-willed Anthony and the inbetween. They then react to their girlfriend in different ways (played by three dancers with different characters). It's fascinating watching the different couplings and how they interact together. It's a very clever mechanism.
The show is based on the film 'The Servant' from the early '60s so we have lots of swinging sixties dancing, covert homosexual liaisons and coyness about sex. It's a very entertaining show and well worth seeing.
On Thursday I went to the Soho Theatre to see Geo Wyeth in the small cabaret space downstairs. I saw Geo at the Soho Theatre four years ago (with Justin Bond and Our Lady J) when he went under the name of Novice Theory and I decided he was someone to watch. Novice Theory was a little waif with an accordion but Geo has grown up and matured and is confident in his own art.The show was a mixture of music and performance art. Geo came on with his shirt pulled up around his shoulders and his trousers round his ankles with a cushion tied across his face with a belt. He staggered round drunk and got down off the stage with his keyboards to serenade us with some sound. At one point he unfolded a large sheet of polythene that he then spread over us as a tent and kept moving the tent from one side of the audience to the other as he recited a poem.
Geo's words and music are often quite complex and he uses his body and voice to give them additional power. He's a bit of a fidgiter - he wasn't still for a moment. While playing the piano he kept moving to stand up and then sit back down and his legs couldn't keep still while he played the guitar sitting on a stool. He brought out some amazing sounds from the guitar.
He was only on for just over an hour for this show (there were two other shows after his finished, including one by Eddie Izzard) and it was well worth seeing him. His new album, 'Alien Tapes' has just been released so it's worth tracking it down and giving it a listen.
My final show last week was Penny Arcade's 'Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!' at the Arcola Tent in Dalston. It's subtitled, 'A passionate celebration of sex, freedom and art' and has been on the go for 20 years in different cities around the globe. Penny is now 62 and unrepentant, free with tales of her past, people she's known, the tribulations of being a faghag and telling tales of the financial realities of being a whore. The four words of the title of the show punctuate the show to good effect.The show started at 7:30pm with half an hour of erotic dancing from a group of dancers who could do amazing things with their bodies - my favourite was the pole dancer who just sat at the top of her pole without holding on at all. Clothing was in the style of skanty.
Penny came on at 8:00pm and was on stage more or less until about 10:45pm with a half-time break for a trip to the bar and dancing on the stage. I suppose the attraction of this show depends on your age and outlook. Penny is 10 years older than me and has lived the bohemian life - and still seems to from the sound of it. I liked her scene playing the receptionist in a brothel and then playing a prostitute discussing her motivations for embracing her trade. I liked her tirade against the 'Guardian' reviewer that dared to call the show old fashioned due to her section about HIV and AIDS in the '80s. That was part of her world in the '80s and shouldn't be lost simply because things have moved on. That seems to be something she's quite keen on, preserving the 'underground' landscape she grew up in and inhabited from the '60s till today. If you lose your shared history where are you?
We were invited to dance on the stage and I didn't. In the last section Penny came on stage to dance and slowly remove her clothes while we heard and watched a video of someone quoting a Lenny Bruce sequence about censorship. When she removed her bra some of the gays behind me thought they were in an American talk show and started whooping so she silenced them with a wave of her hand and a thumb towards the screen - listen to what's being said, she signed. And her stripping continued till she was naked. It was at that point I thought, 'ok, I didn't dance. but if she asked us, would I strip?' and I'm not sure what my response would be.
I'm very pleased I saw this show. It's not for everyone, I suspect, but it worked for me. I particularly liked the sequence when the lights were turned off and she gradually walked round the set blowing out candles as she told us tales and celebrated the freedom of all of us being equal in the dark. The show has now closed at the Arcola Tent but will re-open on 8 August in the Old Vic Tunnels. I think I'll go to see her again.
An added bonus was seeing @dawnamberharvey spin the choons for the show and get name-checked in the programme!
