Tag Archives: Southbank Centre

MASTERCLASS

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Southbank Centre

MASTERCLASS at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre

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β€œRachel Bergin’s creative production packs a well-staged punch aimed squarely at the patriarchy”

You will recognise the stage set up from any β€œA Conversation With…” events you have attended in the neighbouring Royal Festival Hall. Two opposing casual chairs either side of a coffee table, prominent copies of a β€˜great work’, and a historically accurate cognac bottle: Ellen Kirk as set designer gets the tone just right.

However, the sincerity lasts for mere seconds before Feidlim Cannon and Adrienne Truscott start unravelling the form with silliness, physical comedy and rat-a-tat dialogue. Over the course of an hour they unpick the work of many of the greats stubbornly taking space in the literary and theatrical canon.

Feidlim Cannon plays the interviewer, entering the stage to smooth jazz (Jennifer O’Malley on sound design), ready to cosily interrogate a great man and his body of work. A moustachioed and body suited Adrienne Truscott is introduced as a writer, director and costume designer whose work allegedly surfaces themes of truth, gender and power, but as unrehearsed readings of one of his scenes demonstrate, are more often channels for misogyny and violence against women.

 

 

Quickly, the artifice is revealed, with Cannon’s seventies wig falling off during farcical movement sequences (well designed by Eddie Kay, movement director). This escalates throughout the piece as lines between the characters and the artists playing them are increasingly blurred; they appear to break scene to demand self-examination of themselves. In places the threads of the devising are still visible, though they are mostly welcomed (I am a sucker for a juxtaposed dance sequence). Costumes are shed nearly all the way; which as we are reminded is Truscott’s calling card from previous shows, and extensively examined.

There are some great one liners in the first half of the script from writers Cannon and Truscott, along with Gary Keegan of Irish theatre company Brokentalkers, which jab at well-known theatrical productions that have frankly audacious premises. The exploration of why genius and passion never seems to express itself in calm and considered behaviour when violence is available was another point persuasively demonstrated.

Then as the fourth wall fully breaks, we move into a fairly explicit lecture on feminism, allyship and taking up space. It feels like most of the flair disappears for too long before the ambiguous ending restores the playfulness that has underpinned the majority of the piece. I felt like the stripped back truth-telling felt a bit too much like a classroom and the commentary slightly too surface level to justify the lack of theatricality.

Despite this, the vast majority of Masterclass is creative, gnarly, and cathartic for many a practitioner. Rachel Bergin’s creative production packs a well-staged punch aimed squarely at the patriarchy.


MASTERCLASS at the Southbank Centre

Reviewed on 9th May 2024

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Ste Murray

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE | β˜…β˜…β˜…Β½ | April 2024
REUBEN KAYE: THE BUTCH IS BACK | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | December 2023
THE PARADIS FILES | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2022

MASTERCLASS

MASTERCLASS

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE

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Southbank Centre

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE at the Southbank Centre

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β€œthe choreography excels – subtly, not in caricature, allowing the dancer’s skills to shine”

The latest work from Hofesh Schecter, From England with Love, is exactly what you might expect from the title. An exploration through dance of England; its long, storied history and how its people use or rebel against it in their search for meaning.

It is an odd quirk that β€˜outsiders’ are often most incisive in understanding a place and its people. Schecter was born and grew up in Israel, but moved to the UK in 2002 and has been based here since – nearly half his life and the majority of his adult life. The potential insights this unique perspective could bring filled me with hope for a daring and soul searching performance; particularly on learning that the piece was first performed by Nederlands Dans Theatre 1 in the Hague barely a year after the UK left the EU. Could this be deeply political as well as beautiful?

For its UK premiere at the Southbank Centre, the piece is performed by new recruits to Schecter II, Hofesh Schecter Company’s paid professional development programme for 18-25 years this year drawn from the UK but also Italy, Belgium and even Iceland. As well as choreographing the piece, the multi-talented Schecter has also composed the score including works from English composers – Elgar, Tallis, Monk and Purcell (after whom one of the Southbank Centre rooms is named) – spliced with rock and electronic.

It’s a strong start, with the dancers inconspicuously dressed in school uniforms performing a ports de bras in unison. As the movements are so small and intentional, it’s the dancers faces you focus on – each telling a story of hope and anticipation that slowly turns to steel as if hardened by the world.

Rainfall interrupts the scene, and movements become bigger and more chaotic, with the group forming a swirling squall. Choral music begins, and we are transported to the playground where hops and skips abound. These early moments are impressive both for the quality of the movements and the way in which dancers use the space. Hofesh Schecter’s choreography draws your eye from one side of the stage to the other, following a dancer or two, before being captured by another and taken off again in another direction. Again the facial expressions set the dancers apart with Holly Brennan’s innocent school girl demeanour transformed to loud-mouthed lout particularly delightful. It’s lively staging and a luxuriant use of space enhanced by wonderful lighting by Tom Visser.

But the piece loses its way in the middle. A series of vignettes serving as clumsy exposition took it from subtle to stereotype. Can England really just be reduced to violence, yobs and hooliganism? Juxtaposed with cups of tea, the royal wave and a few feeble keepy-uppys (Come on En-ger-land)? The longer it went on the more meaningless these motifs became.

We end where we began, in form and in spirit. The dancers drift from side to side, unmoored and unburdened – directionless. Without the soundtrack of England’s illustrious history where will they go? It’s through exploration of themes in this way that the choreography excels – subtly, not in caricature, allowing the dancer’s skills to shine.


FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE at the Southbank Centre

Reviewed on 18th April 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Tom Visser

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

REUBEN KAYE: THE BUTCH IS BACK | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | December 2023
THE PARADIS FILES | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2022

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page