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Showing posts with the label Dmitrij Turchaninov

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The brown word: Death on the Throne @gatehouselondon

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We’re warned at the start of the show with an upbeat number that this is not the usual sort of musical. And it turns out to be just that. But with boundless enthusiasm and energy from its two leads, who deploy a range of voices and breathtaking energy to create a series of voices for puppet characters, a bedtime story becomes a silly oddball tale about four souls stuck in purgatory. With puppets. And various toilet humour references. It’s currently playing at Upstairs At The Gatehouse . The piece starts as a bedtime story. Daddy (Mark Underwood) is about to read a bedtime story for Louise (Sarah Louise Hughes). But her stomach felt funny, and soon, she went to the bathroom. Then, for reasons that seem to only make sense in the confines of the show, they start telling the story of four people who died in unfortunate circumstances in the bathroom. Depicted as puppets, they’re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesn’t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...

On matters of love and debt: The Bear / The Lady With The Dog @TheUniontheatre @ART_THEATRE_LDN

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Summer means that attention for all things theatrical (and fringey) usually drifts north to Edinburgh. But over at the Union Theatre , a Chekhov double bill by new production company Art Theatre is there to remind us that London can still surprise us with exciting fringe theatre any time of the year.  There are two short comedies by Anton Chekhov and directed by Dmitrij Turchaninov, an alumnus of Studio Chekhov: Moscow Art Theatre School – which first performed  Chekhov’s plays. And with a simple staging and engaging performances, the works come to life.  First up is the Lady With The Dog, which is about a cynical married man who, while holidaying in Yalta, falls in love with another married woman who happens to go everywhere with a little dog. Based on a short story of Chekhov’s, it’s more storytelling than a play, but with its simple projections and props, you feel like you are on holiday at the turn of the last century.  After the interval is The Bear, a story abo...