‘A strange and beautiful concoction…’ Further reviews of ‘playing The Maids’

 

Playing The Maids

 

We continue into the Wales tour of the international collaboration ‘playing The Maids’, gathering reviews as we go.

Othniel Smith of The British Theatre Guide felt it

‘…accessible and visually stimulating throughout…moments of disarming humour… playing ‘The Maids’ is a strange and beautiful concoction.’

Full review: http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/playing-the-ma-chapter-cardif-11227

Over on the Exeunt theatre magazine site, Tom Wentworth wrote:

‘…a fascinating piece…melancholy interwoven with humour… immersive and intuitive…’

http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/playing-the-maids/

And this on top of our Five star review from Denis Lennon in The Public Reviews

‘…Stunning… I urge you to go see…’

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/playing-the-maids-chapter-arts-centre-cardiff/

 

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Friday-Saturday 27-28 February, all at 8pm

02920 304400 / www.chapter.org

 

Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon

Thursday 26 February at 8pm

01874 611622 / www.brycheiniog.co.uk

 

Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Friday 6 March at 7.30pm

01970 623232 / www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk

‘Stunning..’ 5 Star Review for ‘playing The Maids’

 

Regina Crowley and Bernadette Cronin of Gaitkrash, ‘playing The Maids’

The Public Reviews

Reviewer: Denis Lennon

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/playing-the-maids-chapter-arts-centre-cardiff/

If you are looking for a production of Jean Genet’s The Maids when you come to Chapter to watch Playing ‘The Maids’ you will find something else entirely, and may not get what you came for. What you will get, however, is a performance that engages and interrogates the notions of servitude within Genet’s world – a world where two sister maids play out fantasies to kill their Madame. For an audience, this production raises far more questions than it attempts to answer. It poses a challenge for the audience to scrutinise the power dynamics present within the 2015 zeitgeist. This is a refreshing break from the patronising didacticism we are all too often privy to in theatre today.
With this intercultural collaboration between the Irish Gaitkrash Company, the Korean Theatre P’yut and Wales based Llanarth Group, something of rare complexity, beauty and conviction has been created under the guidance of director Phillip Zarrilli and dramaturge Kaite O’Reilly.
“You look at me as if I am moving, it’s not me moving, I am being moved.”
The piece situates itself in a metatheatrical limbo: one minute we have one of Genet’s maids in front of us onstage, the next the same actor speaks her own name as stated very clearly in the programme on our laps. These transitions, from one reality to another, are not always obvious, leaving the audience in a constant state of questioning who exactly they are looking at, at any one moment. The way the company play with this ambiguity is inspired and had me (at times, literally) on the edge of my seat and still has me questioning the power dynamics present within the piece and, now, wider society.
All performers, including the musicians, in this production show a seamless cohesion with one another which creates an atmosphere and necessary moments of tension so palpable that the audience on the night held tightly onto any tickles in their throats to the end.
Apart from this wonderful production’s existential qualities, it serves the audience with an aesthetic feast from the belly-butterfly inducing crescendos created by cellist Adrian Curtin and sound artist Mick O’Shea, to the hilariously jarring Chinese night club karaoke of the Madame (Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo).
All this is interwoven by, sometimes subtle, humour throughout, for example when we hear the Irish sisters (Bernadette Cronin & Regina Crowley) threaten each other with a tirade of violent imagery, whilst always remaining sisterly or when the Korean sisters (Jeungsook Yoo & Sunhee Kim) display their fascination with the Madame’s beauty products with a hilarious, but poignant, childishness. These performances are all stunning.
If there is anything amiss in this performance, so much is the level of engagement that I did not notice it. Even the times I started to question any particular choice, such as the use of a distorted microphone to read stage directions, these choices were always justified later –it turns out the distortion of the voice serves a wonderful disembodied quality necessary for the metatheatricality of the piece.
This performance is something that will stay with me for some time and I urge you to see.

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Thurs-Sat 19-21 February and Friday-Saturday 27-28 February, all at 8pm

02920 304400 / www.chapter.org

 

Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon

Thursday 26 February at 8pm

01874 611622 / www.brycheiniog.co.uk

 

Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Friday 6 March at 7.30pm

01970 623232 / www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk

Adaptations, reinventions, and renewals at The Hours Bookshop, Brecon Feb 26 2015

Kaite O’Reilly: A Talk on adaptations, reinventions, renewals…

I will be giving a talk at the splendid The Hours Bookshop and Cafe, 15, Ship Street, Brecon, on Feb 26 at 4.30pm.

This free talk on adaptations, reinventions and renewals is in association with the performance of my production Playing The Maids at Theatr Brycheiniog, Canal Wharf, Brecon, that evening, 26th February at 8pm.

Over my career, I have reinvented many received stories. This informal talk will include how I approached Aeschylus’s ‘Persians’ for National Theatre Wales in 2010, for which I received the Ted Hughes Award for new works in poetry, to’Woman of Flowers’, my gritty retelling of the myth of Blodeuwedd from The Mabinogian,  to ‘Playing The Maids’, an international collaboration of new performance work in the age of austerity inspired by Genet’s play of class power dynamics…

Where to begin? What are the pitfalls? Is a story ever truly ours, or just passed down to the next generation?

The work inspired by Genet’s ‘The Maids’ is an international intercultural collaboration between The Llanarth Group (Wales), Gaitkrash (Ireland) and Theatre P’Yut (Korea), touring Wales 19th Feb – 6 March 2015.

‘…total imaginative engagement… a frontier of experimental work..’ (Echo on preview of ‘Playing The Maids’ at Cork Midsummer Festival 2014)

‘..a complex, multi-layered work… richly gorgeous stuff…’   (Jon Gower on ‘Playing the Maids’ preview)

My talk at 4.30pm at The Hours Bookshop and Cafe coincides with the extension of an exhibition there. Leigh and Nicky of The Hours wrote:

‘Blodeuwedd’ is Artist Toose Morton’s response to the tale we gave her from ‘The Mabinogion’ with which to conjure an exhibition of new work. And that she has. A wonderful fusion of Life Drawing, Painting and Sculpture the exhibition can be seen (and indeed works purchased) in our little upstairs gallery until February end. You can read more about Toose and her work here: https://www.facebook.com/Toosemortonart

http://the-hours.co.uk/