Post by Honoured Guest on Mar 19, 2017 11:36:59 GMT
Company of Sirens specialises in the welsh premieres of contemporary plays by the likes of Philip Ridley and Anthony Neilson in small-scale, project-funded, studio-theatre productions. For The Nether by Jennifer Haley, the staging concept and design are by good cop bad cop, a long-established experimental theatre duo who also act as two of the characters and operate technical aspects of the show from an on-stage desk. The production has echoes of their work in Brith Gof's Hafren project twenty years ago.
All the issues and aspects of the play are presented and conveyed successfully, but at a small fraction of the cost of Headlong's production at the Royal Court and in the West End. The only missing element is the American context which has here been excised from the Hideaway, but this is no bad thing because it means that no one watching the show can dismiss it as being only about America.
This production of The Nether is a further example of how, as I've argued before, theatre might benefit by the diversion of public funding from expensive productions by a small number of "major" London companies to a myriad of smaller theatre groups spread throughout the UK.
The Nether runs at Chapter until Saturday 25 March.
All the issues and aspects of the play are presented and conveyed successfully, but at a small fraction of the cost of Headlong's production at the Royal Court and in the West End. The only missing element is the American context which has here been excised from the Hideaway, but this is no bad thing because it means that no one watching the show can dismiss it as being only about America.
This production of The Nether is a further example of how, as I've argued before, theatre might benefit by the diversion of public funding from expensive productions by a small number of "major" London companies to a myriad of smaller theatre groups spread throughout the UK.
The Nether runs at Chapter until Saturday 25 March.
