Tezza's Theatre Place

How does one measure a life and one’s progress from baby to a corpse? According to Shakespeare, “ All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. ” The seven ages of man is a concept that resonates with many people, and none more so than the aged clown in Justin Butcher’s moving play   Scaramouche Jones or The Seven White Masks . Shane Richie, Scaramouche Jones (credit Bonnie Britain). The play starts late on the 31st of December 1999 with the white-faced clown Scaramouche (Shane Richie) coming down the stairs to his dressing room after finishing his last show of the 20th Century. Scaramouche has plans to mark the millennium in a unique way, for tonight is not only his 100th birthday but also, the final day of his life. However, before shuffling off this mortal coil, Scaramouche wants to tell his story. One which starts at the end of the 19th Century an...

  Meeting the man/woman/person of your dreams is difficult enough at the best of times, but in a lockdown situation, it’s pretty much impossible. However, all hope is not lost as, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, there are a preponderance of dating apps where swiping left or right may be the way to meet that special one. Into the field comes a new app,  Manimals , and I was lucky enough to attend a workshop on the App the other night. Before the workshop started, I received instructions on how to set up my Manimals profile, a lot less of a painful experience than for some dating apps. Then, at the appointed time, I opened Zoom and got ready to play – and who knows, meet the partner of my dreams – along with the other workshop members. When we arrived, we were given a briefing by Mimi on the workshop and the technical and access support available to us. We were also warned that the workshop wasn’t really SFW, which intrigued me even more. We then went off in pairs to...

Scott Le Crass As the pandemic spread, and the country went into lockdown, then out, then back, then out then back, creatives everywhere had to adjust their lives and their modus operandi in order to bring theatre to the people and keep their art alive. One of those who has worked very well in this way is Director  Scott Le Crass , and I recently caught up with him for a chat about theatre in the age of COVID. TE: Welcome along Scott. I’ve just been looking back and the last time we talked was in June 2019 just after the opening of your show  Country Music  at the Omnibus Theatre. That was a successful run, wasn’t it? SLC: Yes, we ran for four weeks. I was quite keen for that to happen as a lot of fringe shows I’d done prior to that had had a maximum run of three weeks and I felt that to make it work and try to attract as much of an audience as possible it made sense to do a longer run. I sort of co-produced that production as well, and with a producing hat on as well, I ...

As theatre has moved online, there have been some valiant attempts to make use of technology in order to bring productions to an audience, starved of live shows. The latest in these events is  The House That Slipped  presented by Teatro Vivo. Prior to the show, I received a quiz, or questionnaire to complete, Show starts with a very friendly technical run-through, which is interesting as the 2070 technology is far above ours in 2020. Soleen (Bernadette Russell) then came on and taught us our first bit of 2070 etiquette, how to say hello. Next, we were whisked off to 12 Laburnum Drive, where we got to meet the residents Kevin Baxter (Michael Wagg), his wife Sandra (Sarah Finigan), her sister Julia (Kas Darley) who is living with the Baxter’s, through no fault of her own and finally Yasmin (Tasha Magigi) from the flat upstairs. After the introductions, the group tells us what their current situation is. Whilst being on lockdown during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, they had some...

Every Seven Minutes by Ken Preuss Once again, Encompass Productions brings us a selection of short one-act plays.  The evening started with Every  Seven Minutes by Ken Preuss Performed by Ryan Brannon and Cate Olivia Directed by Jonathan Woodhouse Two godlike type people in the “every seven minutes room” whose job is to ensure that things that happen every seven minutes occur. For example, apparently, every seven minutes a double rainbow appears, and these two make it happen. The chap (Ryan Brannon) takes it all in his stride and doesn’t care what the consequences are of his actions. So, every seven minutes he makes a person drown, but doesn’t have any interest in who that person is or what their circumstances are. To him, it’s just a job, whereas the girl, who is new in the role, seems to have trouble disassociating her actions from emotions. She rebels against the system that affects the lives of random people every seven minutes, leading to an unexpected end of the p...

Paul Hunter (Albin), Simon Hepworth (Mercédès) and Michael Matus (Georges) in La Cage aux Folles [The Play] at Park Theatre. Photo by Mark Douet. So, you’ve gone and done it. You’ve met the love of your life, wined and dined them and finally proposed. They’ve accepted and now it’s time to think about the wedding preparations. But before the big day itself, something else needs to happen. The two sets of parents need to meet. A daunting enough experience for any young couple, but if the respective families come from very differing backgrounds, then the problems can really mount. Welcome to the first English version of  La Cage aux Folles (The Play)  at the Park Theatre. Georges (Michael Matus) and Albin (Paul Hunter) are a fairly normal couple living in Saint Tropez. Well, normal may not be the ‘mot juste’. George is the owner of a nightclub called, La Cage aux Folles, and his partner Albin, is Madame Zaza, the star of the club’s cabaret. George loves his business, even if...

Hannah Norris – After You 2019 credit Mark Gambino. Do you ever think back and wonder what might have been, if….? Like if I hadn’t moved to Lancashire when I was 14 or joined the RAF when I was 21, etc. I’m sure we all do it at some time or another but, do we ever look at our parents and wonder what their life might have been like if they had gone down different paths in their lives? No, me neither. But, luckily for us, Hannah Norris had just that idea and the result is her one-act play  After You  which is currently playing at Soho Theatre. Written by and starring Hannah and her real-life mother Angela Norris,  After You  starts by looking at Angela’s early life. When she was 14, Angela was in the first-ever Australian production of  The Sound of Music  at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in 1961. But, Angela’s career went no further than that and Hannah wonders if this is because of the social conventions of the time. Mother and daughter discuss this, fr...

Tosca – credit Ali Wright. “ People’s reaction to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul. ” This is probably the most profound sentence uttered in the movie ‘Pretty Woman’. I remember my first opera, ‘Carmen’ at the ENO. I will not say it changed my life, but I was totally hooked on opera as an art form afterwards. Everyone should have a way into the wonderful world of opera, and one of the best I can recommend is at the Trafalgar Studios where they are currently staging  Opera Undone: Tosca & La bohème  sung in English, the two operas have been reviewed and re-written, bringing them firmly up to date, as individual one-hour productions. The night begins with  Tosca . In his studio, the painter Mario Cavaradossi (Roger Paterson) is working on a portrait of a lady. The lady is beautiful a...

Chaplin Birth of a Tramp – Photographer credit Davor@OcularCreative Charlie Chaplin is one of those actors that I thought I knew a bit about. I knew he was born and lived around the Elephant and Castle area – there used to be a pub named after him by the shopping centre. I also knew he was a star of many silent movies but fell out with Hollywood during the McCarthy era and moved to Switzerland. Of his life before fame, I knew nothing but thanks to the good folks at Arrows & Traps, and writer Ross McGregor, and their play  Chaplin: Birth of a Tramp , at the Jack Studio Theatre, I now know a lot more than I did before. The show starts in 1928 Hollywood where Charlie Chaplin (Conor Moss) is auditioning Virginia Cherrill (Laurel Marks), for the female lead in his next film. Cherrill has no real acting experience, but Charlie remembers her from a modelling shoot on Santa Monica beach. During the audition, Charlie’s brother, and business manager Sydney (Toby Wynn-Davies) comes i...

LEAVE A COMMENT Dad’s Army is still one of the absolute joys of the television world. Over 9 series, and 80 episodes, we followed the ups and downs of a group of, on the whole, elderly men in a quiet seaside town, ready to put their lives on the line in defence of their country. First transmitted in between 1968 and 1977, the show is regularly repeated on BBC2 on a Saturday night, and still pulls in 2 or 3 million viewers. The highly successful radio spin-off gets regular airings on BBC Radio 4 Extra. With such an iconic show, it might be thought to leave it alone. You can’t improve on perfection – and I’m sure the makers of the recent disastrous movie would concur. However, two men felt there was something more that could be done and last night I was lucky enough to see a performance of the  Dad’s Army Radio Show  at the British Library. The first thing to say is that Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s writing is still as fresh today as it ever was. The three episodes tha...

Sex Crime – Photo by Matt Spike According to Oscar Wilde, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in many ways that’s true. Even an unflattering parody means that you have arrived and been noticed. I say this because this form of flattery is taken to an extreme length in Alexis Gregory’s play  Sex/Crime  at the Soho Theatre. Two men stand in a dark room with plastic covered walls. There is not much to see. A large red sofa and a metal stand, both also covered in plastic, are the room’s only furnishings. The two men – no names, so let’s call then A (Jonny Woo) and B (Alexis Gregory) – are, in fact customer and client. The service offered is to recreate the killings of a gay serial killer. On offer are various gruesome scenarios. All of which emulate the work carried out by ‘Him’ as they refer to the real killer. Both men have their own role in the ‘game’ but, as things progress, the lines between client, customer, killer and client become blurred leading to a final...