TIL Sept 28

16
The Company of A Very Very Very Dark Matter.
WORLD PREMIERE OF A VERY
VERY VERY DARK MATTER
The London Theatre Company’s
production of Martin McDonagh’s new
play, A Very Very Very Dark Matter,
directed by Matthew Dunster, will open
at the Bridge Theatre on 24 October for
a 12-week run.
In a townhouse in Copenhagen works
Hans Christian Andersen, a teller of
exquisite and fantastic children’s tales
beloved by millions. But the true source
of his stories dwells in his attic upstairs,
her existence a dark secret kept from the
outside world. As dangerous, twisted
and funny as his National Theatre and
Broadway hit The Pillowman, Martin
McDonagh’s new play travels deep into
the abysses of the imagination.
Martin McDonagh is an award-winning
writer and director. His plays are The
Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in
Connemara, The Lonesome West, The
Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Cripple of
Inishmaan, The Pillowman, A Behanding
in Spokane and Hangmen. As a writer and
Photo: Eleanor Howarth.
director for film, his credits are Seven
Psychopaths, In Bruges, Six Shooter and
most recently, the Academy Award, BAFTA
and Golden Globe winning Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Matthew Dunster directed
McDonagh’s Hangmen at the Royal
Court which also transferred to New
York. His other directing credits include
The Seagull and A Midsummer Night’s
Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air
Theatre, Love’s Sacrifice for the Royal
Shakespeare Company, Liberian Girl at
the Royal Court, Love the Sinner for the
National Theatre, Doctor Faustus,
Imogen, The Frontline and Much Ado
About Nothing for Shakespeare’s Globe,
Mametz for the National Theatre of
Wales, Before the Party for the Almeida
Theatre and Saturday Night and Sunday
Morning, Macbeth and Mogadishu for
the Royal Exchange Theatre.
The Bridge Theatre is situated at
3 Potters Fields Park, SE1 2SG. Box
Office telephone 0333 320 0051 or
boxoffice@bridgetheatre.co.uk
THE PRISONER
Dorfman until 4 October
Now well into his 90s, former Royal
Shakespeare Company director Peter
Brook has spent over 40 years based in
France, continuing to produce new work
with Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord where
this meditative piece premiered prior to
a brief stint at the Edinburgh
International Festival and its current
limited run at the National Theatre.
Co-written and co-directed with his
long-term collaborator Marie-Hélène
Estienne, this 70 minute, parable-like
production with its multinational cast
mainly eschews props. A desolate, sandstrewn
landscape dotted with desiccated
trees and branches – plus a blanket or
two – are all that are used to conjure the
faraway land where a Visitor (Donald
Sumpter), in search of the secrets of
nature, comes across Hervé Goffings’
Ezekiel. He directs the old man’s travels
to where his nephew Mavuso is serving
a 20 year sentence – not in jail, but
camped on a hill facing the prison walls
– for murdering his own father whom he
discovered in bed with his daughter
Nadia, Mavuso’s sibling for whom
Mavuso himself had incestuous feelings.
The constraints which keep him on
the hillside are internal – there are no
bars preventing him from leaving.
But although there are some clever
and rather beautiful moments (out of
nothing, Hiran Abeysekera’s hot-headed
Mavuso creates an ill-fated rat beneath
his blanket; dimming and brightening
lighting subtly marks the passage of
time) this latest, somewhat obscure
offering from the influential and highly
lauded Brook aspires to greater
profundity than it achieves.
Louise Kingsley
t h i s i s l o n d o n m a g a z i n e • t h i s i s l o n d o n o n l i n e