Blue Elephant Theatre - Spring/Summer 2010
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
CAMBERWELL’s Blue Elephant Theatre has announced its Spring/Summer 2010 programme.
Skinless by Molina Dance Theatre – February 25 to February 27 at 8pm.
Intertwining dance, live singing and physical theatre, Skinless depicts the dramatic yet highly human experience of living with schizophrenia.
Choreographed by Elena Molinaro, Skinless is performed by Laura Brera, Chiara De Palo, Krista Vuori and Paris Wade.
Tickets: £10, £8 concessions, £7.50 Southwark residents. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Nobody’s Home (a work-in-progress) – March 16 to March 20 at 8pm.
This modern and physical retelling of The Odyssey paints a dreamscape of post-war trauma through the story of a combat veteran fighting a psychological battle to get ‘home’. Ailin Conant directs Dorie Kinnear and Will Pinchin, who returns to the Blue Elephant following The Harbour in 2008.
Tickets: £6, £5 concessions, £4 Southwark residents. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Post-show discussion: Tuesday, March 16.
Othello, Shakespeare’s classic in contemporary style – April 13 to May 8 at 8pm.
Othello, General to the Duke of Venice, is commissioned to drive the invading Turkish fleet from Cyprus; his embodied love and passion for wife Desdemona is driven to ultimate destruction in a war for freedom, survival and pride.
Shakespeare’s epic story of love, betrayal and jealousy is brought to the stage by an ensemble company of fifteen actors, using Lazarus Theatre Company’s signature style of combining text with movement and music.
Lazarus has previously presented The Duchess of Malfi and Julius Caesar at the Blue Elephant Theatre.
Tickets: £12.50, £10 concessions, £9.50 Southwark residents. Previews (April 13 and 14): £10, £9.50 Southwark residents. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Post-show discussions: April 20 and 27 and May 4.
Naughty!, a double-bill of contemporary dance and new writing exploring the last decade – May 11 to May 29 at 8pm.
Modern Romance is a full-length contemporary dance piece by Sebastian Rex Dance Group that examines gender politics and the effect of the re-definition of identity on our modern interpretations of love and romance. The soundtrack features songs from the Noughties.
$ellebrity is a dark comedy that asks a very simple question – if celebrities sell themselves to the public – who owns them?
Tickets: £9, £6.50 concessions, £4.50 Southwark residents. Previews (May 11 to 13): £7.50, £6.50 concessions, £4.50 Southwark residents. FREE for under 26s (subject to availability).
The Book of Disquiet, an adaptation of Fernando Pessoa’s modernist masterpiece (a work-in-progress) – June 3 to June 5 at 8pm.
Listed as one of The Guardian’s top 100 books of all time, Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet was discovered in a trunk in his apartment in Lisbon after his death in 1935. Part novel, part memoir, part philosophical meditation on the futility of living, Pessoa’s Livro defies definition and endures as a testament to modernist writing.
In the 75th anniversary year of his death, The Book of Disquiet has been newly translated and re-imagined across three cities in three different moments in time by writer Mark O’Thomas, who similarly brought Jorge Amadao’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands to the London stage in 2006.
This work-in-progress marks the beginning of an investigative process which explores the legacy and continuing relevance of this masterpiece by Portugal’s greatest writer of the Twentieth Century.
Tickets: £6, £5.50 concessions, £5 Southwark residents. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Post-show discussions: June 4 and 5.
Spark: London, a story-telling club night – June 7 to June 11 at 8pm.
Everyone has a story in them. The Blue Elephant will be putting that to the test in a week dedicated to storytelling. Based on the sell-out shows at the Canal Cafe Theatre, a specially selected group of Londoners will tell their extraordinary stories of life in the capital. There will be a different theme each night, plus live music.
Themes include Animal Magnetism (June 7), Guts (June 8), Home (June 9), Special Delivery (June 10) and Close Calls (June 11).
Tickets: Monday to Thursday £8, £6 concessions, £5 Southwark residents); Friday £5. SPECIAL OFFER: see one show, get the rest half price. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Stairway to Heaven, the London premiere of a darkly funny play by Steve Hennessy – June 15 to July 10 at 8pm.
Cheops’ Pyramid. Egypt. 2,700 B.C. The biggest, most terrifying and dangerous construction site the world has ever known. A hundred thousand men will haul two and a half million limestone blocks weighing a total of six million tons up a building the size of a skyscraper using nothing but human muscle.
On his first day working on the pyramid, one young man has to adapt quickly to a new life in a work gang where intense friendships and hatreds are forged in a feverish furnace of desert heat, brutal humour, backbreaking work, horrific accidents, drink, sex and death.
And as the ghosts of dead workmates and visions of Amun Ra the Sun God elbow their way into Makhthon’s dreams, something strange is happening just out of sight, on the higher ledges of the pyramid, where the workers are never allowed.
Where does the stairway really lead?
Tickets: £10, £8 concessions, £7 Southwark residents. Previews (June 15 and 16): £7. Free for under 26s (subject to availability).
Post-show discussion: June 16.
For more information call the box office on 020 7701 0100 or visit www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk