Three Chains and a Light Bulb

Photo credit: Greg Henkenhaf – left to right – R.H. Thomson, David Ferry and Ryan Hollyman
Do you think that a cell and three hostages could be good entertainment of a Saturday night? That's what Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Frank McGuinness' play, is about and it is a tribute to the craft of Thomson, Ferry and Hollyman. The play is loosely based on a real story, but that's not what makes it successful. These three don't have costumes or sets or props to prop them up, as it were, for two hours: the energy and credibility have to come from them alone, and they are superb at it. It's the kind of piece you don't want to end (for your sake, not the characters'!).
You can still catch the production, directed by Tegan Shohet, at the Berkeley (Upstairs) this week; see last week's posting for details or go to http://www.watchovermeshow.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But There IS Joel Kinnaman...

Image
ALT: Joel Kinnaman as Tak Kovacs in a dark, strange world, wearing a blue coat and shirt; he's looking around in wonder. Oh god, I didn't know whether I could get past the first episode: I love dystopian futures, but this seemed hackneyed...  Altered Carbon has the feel of sometimes The Hunger Games , sometimes Harry Potter , often Repo! The Genetic Opera or Gotham City or Narcopolis .There's martial arts, comic booky treatments, digital effects and story content. Some of it is dumb, and the names for things in the future are lazy: The Array is the internet, a sleeve is a host, ONIs are basically smartphones, Poe is like TNG's Data, Meths are the 1%, and paying my chip-implanted fingers is technology that's already here. The "strong, independent woman cop" is the lamest character attempt/trope out there, and the actress is terrible. The producers seem to be trying to appease audiences on every front rather than trying to make a solid, consistent produ...
Read more

What I Didn't Like About "The Martian"

Image
Photo: http://codices.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/machr.jpg I just finished ripping through the 369-page  The Martian by debut novelist Andy Weir, self-confessed science nerd. This year, I have read more fantasy/sci-fi than ever, and several books have been about scientific disasters and/or space, but I tend to go for the more blockbuster and less techie stories, having practically failed science every year after intro biology. We won't even discuss maths. I'm a luddite, and I don't want to be scratching my head during my precious escapism hours. So books that go into thrust and scientific measurements and velocity and the nightmare-inducing periodic table of elements are a little intimidating for me. The story, if you haven't heard yet about the book or the upcoming Matt Damon movie, is about an astronaut named Mark Watney who gets stranded on Mars after a mission mishap. That's all I'll say in the interest of avoiding spoilers à la "Who Shot...
Read more

Featured CONTACT Exhibition

One of the CONTACT Festival exhibitions I hope to get to is that of Osheen Harruthoonyan, which is taking place at Pikto. You can preview some work here . Looking forward to that and many other shows. Ck out the CONTACT directory magazine or view the info at their guide page .
Read more