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A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

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It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...

This empty world: Yerma @CervantesTheatr

There’s a hint of melancholy from the outset with Yerma. She’s been married for a while and without a child. While all those around her have children. But it still doesn’t prepare you for what lies ahead in this emotional reinterpretation that shifts the action to pre-revolution Cuba.

Federico García Lorca’s tragic poem is currently playing at the Cervantes Theatre. Performed in both English and Spanish. The English translation is by Carmen Zapata and Michael Dewell.

As Yerma, Leila Damiola inhabits the role and is astounding. She moves from hope and optimism to despair as the years go by without the child she craves. As each scene concludes its as if she is suffering a new heartbreak as she gradually realises she’s trapped in a loveless and barren marriage.

Opposite her is Tom Whitlock as Juan, her cold and detached husband. He is often out all evening working the farm, and so he enlists his sister to watch Yerma. So people don’t talk. But they’ll talk anyway.

Coco Mbassi is also a standout as the older woman with her experience and harsh words for Yerma. These words go against everything she holds as important. And so she ignores them.

Lorca’s play brings out the superstition and priorities of rural Spain. Here it is given new impetus in shifting the action to Cuba, including an intense fertility ritual Yerma submits to in desperation.

Angel Haro’s design features a large colourful hammock. It’s Yerma’s cocoon to hide in. But it’s also a symbol of her material wealth. This is a woman who has so much yet so little.

There’s also an effective use of sound effects to evoke the rural life. The bells of the sheep that remind the shepherds their work is never done.

Directed by Jorge de Juan, Yerma is at the Cervantes Theatre until 1 December.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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