Shooting Rats - Octagon Hall
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FANSHEN Theatre Company is presenting an Oval House Theatre Elsewhere production at the Octagon Hall – the UK premiere of Peter Turrini and Willard Manus’ Shooting Rats which runs from October 6 to October 24, 2009.
The Octagon Hall of the Old Lilian Baylis School is transformed into a rubbish dump complete with purpose built exploding car, the setting for this radical play about two young people on the cusp of adulthood.
Evie and Ads are out on their first date: she wants to be wined and dined but instead he takes her to a rubbish dump. Surrounded by discarded goods, the pair begins to make surprising discoveries about each other, and to challenge the assumptions that other people have made about their lives.
Turrini is one of Austria’s most-performed contemporary playwrights. In January 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Wurth Prize for European Literature. Shooting Rats is his first play. Written in 1967, it has never been performed in the UK.
A maverick writer, Marxist and vineyard owner, Turrini specifies that anyone wanting to stage Shooting Rats must produce a version of his play relocated to the time and place of the production. Accordingly, over the past year, Fanshen have worked with groups of actors and young people from Lambeth to relocate Shooting Rats to South London, making this an international play for a local audience.
Shooting Rats is directed by Dan Barnard and Rachel Briscoe, designed by Chris Gylee, with lighting by Michael Nabarro and sound by Richard Hammarton.
The project is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Big Lottery Fund, Unity Theatre Trust and the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation.
Tickets: £12, £6 concessions, previews (October 6 and 7) all tickets £6.
Time: Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm.
Running Time: 70 minutes.
NB: The venue is not wheelchair accessible.
British Sign Language: Tuesday, October 20 (with Jacqui Beckford).
To book call 020 7582 7680 or visit the Oval House Theatre Website
Octagon Hall, the old Lilian Baylis School site, Lollard Street, London, SE11 6PY