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Showing posts with the label Ethan Kai

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Heavy meta: Why am I So Single? @sosinglemusical

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Being young and single never seemed so fun, full of energy, yet full of contradictions in this high-concept meta-musical, Why Am I So Single? The fourth wall is not so much broken as endlessly pummelled as the cast talks directly to the audience. Frequently. But essentially, it’s about young people with neuroses and smartphone addiction exploring why they can’t find love in present-day London. Told with a series of spectacular songs and dance scenes in this new musical from the creators of Six, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. But while we don’t necessarily get an answer that rings true to the question posed by this show, you are likely to be distracted mainly by the energy and the songs. It’s currently playing at the Garrick Theatre.  A new musical based on an original idea, the premise is that Oliver (Jo Foster) and Nancy (Leesa Tulley) - which are not their real names but names taken from their favourite musical, Oliver - have to write a new musical but are stuck for an idea. So, after e
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Horse Play: Equus @Trafstudios #EquusWestEnd

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Peter Shaffer's play Equus is given a slick and stylised turn in this English Touring Company production that's currently playing on the West End at Trafalgar Studios . With everything stripped back to the bare essentials, all that's left is a white curtain, muscles and guilt. And the occasion flash or scream. If you missed it earlier this year at Theatre Royal Stratford East, see it now as it's a fresh look at this psychological thriller. The premise of the piece is that seventeen-year-old Alan (played by Ethan Kai with moody intensity), has blinded six horses in a stable he worked in on weekends. Rather than go to jail, he's sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.  And where Dysart (Zubin Varla) has to uncover the motive for this madness. Even if it was inspired by a real-life crime, it's rather clever of Schaffer to focus on cruelty to horses in England. Nothing surely can be more shocking in a country that worships the very ground the equine b
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Common divisions: Returning to Haifa @Finborough

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The stage adaption of Ghassan Kanafani’s Returning to Haifa by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace is fiery and emotional. It’s having its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre . The piece puts you in the living room of a family who had to flee the city of Haifa in 1948, and the family that subsequently occupied it.  The injustice of finding your own home and your belongings legally occupied by someone else is only part of the anger in this piece. It also extends to the staging of it. The programme notes that it was due to have it’s world premiere by the New York Public Theatre. But political pressure from their board led to the proejct being abandoned.  But New York’s loss is London’s gain. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the events you begin to understand it. It humanises enemies and explains motives. And the sensitive portrayals by the ensemble add to emotional impact. The piece crosses three separate time periods. It opens before the dispossession in 1947. Then the period of the exp
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