Tezza's Theatre Place

What is ‘power’? According to an online dictionary, power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events. However, even with this definition, whilst many people believe they have power, very few actually do. There is a moment in Game of Thrones when Queen Cersei, explains the concept to Lord Baelish in three words, “Power is power”. Knowing who actually wields power is one of the conundrums that remains at the end of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play  Salomé  which is Lazarus Theatre Company’s final production in their season at Greenwich Theatre. Things are not going well in the Roman province of Judea. Herod Antipas (Jamie O’Neill), the Tetrarch does not have a secure hold on the reigns of power in his country, Herod has many distractions in his life. There are rivals for his throne – which he basically holds at the will of Caesar – and there is unrest in his province. Chief among those causing unrest is a Judean prophet by the ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/198074/review-brief-encounter-empire-cinema-haymarket/ Jim Sturgeon as Alec & Isabel Pollen as Laura in Brief Encounter, credit Steve Tanner Britain in 1938 was very different to how it is now. For the second time in most people’s lives, war was once again a strong possibility. Everyone dreamed of settling down into a strong stable marriage. Divorce was not something that society approved of – it was only two years previously that the King had had to abdicate for wanting to marry an American divorcee. This is a Britain where the middle classes are responsible for the moral backbone of the nation. This the Britain with  Brief Encounter  at the Empire Cinema in London’s West End. A railway station refreshment room is the unlikely setting for romance to spring. Though this is no ordinary refreshment room as it seems to be a magical place with a direct line to cupid and his bow. Presided over by Myrtle Bagot (Lucy Thackeray) a rather...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196952/a-passage-to-india-park-theatre-london-review/ As a British person, I am meant to be ashamed by the UK’s colonial past. And in some ways, I can understand that. Certain regressive laws introduced during the days of ‘ the empire on which the sun never set ’ are still in place in some of the former colonies, and let’s be honest, the colonial power often abused their position and the local populace. To get an idea of how things were, you can head to the Park Theatre to see Simon Dormandy’s adaptation of E. M. Forster’s classic  A Passage to India . In the city of Chandrapore, in British India, there are two very different types of people – The British and the Indians. They exist side by side, working ‘together’ – with the British in the positions of power – but the two races don’t mix outside of working relationships and they definitely don’t socialise. However, Dr Aziz (Asif Khan) doesn’t entirely believe that this is true. He for exam...

http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/crime-and-punishment-brockley-jack-studio-theatre-review/ When you consider the vast wealth of literature available in the world, you sometimes have to wonder why playwrights decide that certain books should be turned into a piece of theatrical entertainment. For example, imagine taking a novel with around twenty-two listed characters and which the author originally divided into six distinct parts with an epilogue and then distilling all of this down to a ninety-minute one-act play three actors. Personally, I would have given up within the first five minutes. However, Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus have more fortitude than me and so, they gave the treatment to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novel  Crime and Punishment  and the result of their work can be seen at Brockley’s famous Jack Studio Theatre The play starts with two men in an office. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, (Christopher Tester) is a young man who, going ...