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TONGUES AND STUTTER |
THEATRE |
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| Fri 4 July 7pm & Sat 5 July 9pm |
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£7.50 / (£5 concs), 14+ |
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Save some money!!
Hotbed Day Passes -- see all the plays on any one day (ex Saturday 12 July) for just £10.50 / £7.50 concession.
Hotbed Mega-Pass -- see all the plays on Saturday 12 July for just £20 / £15 concession.
TONGUES by Fraser Grace
A twisting, darkly comic reflection on war from one of Britain's finest political playwrights - the language of conflict has rarely been more beautiful.
Daylight. Rain. Soldier is sitting on a rough chair. He wears a torn uniform - all the insignia ripped off. The only movement is from Kay, squatting stage left, pointing her camera and shooting. She stands back, collecting herself, recovering from her discovery.
KAY: Sorry. I don't usually...
Pause.
Anyway, I'm done here, so...
Pause.
The word 'thanks' hovers in the air.
The Writer Says...
'I've written quite a bit about war, and about how broken the world is. I'm increasingly interested in exploring how I would like the world to be, seeing characters take the small steps away from the war and hatred that any of us might take. Tongues is pretty dark, I think, but also almost irresponsibly optimistic. It's about struggle, a drama about the neuroses of war, the vagaries of map reading and why the dead make such good listeners'.
Fraser Grace loves to write - and has won several awards for it. His best-known play, Breakfast with Mugabe, was commissioned and produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the World Service, and was revived this year for separate productions in Bath and Pittsburgh, USA. His work for Menagerie Theatre includes Gifts of War, Butterfly Fingers and Frobisher's Gold, commissioned by the company and starring Janet Suzman. It was produced at The Junction and The Shaw Theatre, London in 2006.
'Absolutely compelling theatre' Evening Standard (on Gifts of War)
STUTTER By Jennifer Farmer
Luke, 21, white, lies on a hospital bed. He is badly injured and is on a life support system.
To look at him, you would think he was just sleeping.
Just asleep.
Just a sleeping angel.
An angel sleeping, that's what he looks like.
Beat, then all manner of alarms sound as Luke begins to crash.
Luke is in a coma as the result of a terrorist attack. But as his past comes to light, it turns out that this man is not the convenient innocent victim everyone would like him to be. Jennifer Farmer blurs our perceptions between innocence and guilt, and in a world where everything is far from black and white, asks where our sympathies should really lie.
The Writer Says...
'For me, a play wants to be written when there are questions that want to be asked. With Stutter, the questions came after hearing the phrase 'innocent victim' once too often. Why do we like victims, not survivors? And why do we like our victims innocent?'
Born in Tennessee, Jennifer Farmer studied at NYU, prior to moving to London in 1998. Her most recent play, Bulletproof Soul, was produced at Birmingham Rep and her previous play Compact Failure received rave reviews during its national tour in 2004. Other plays include Breathing (Theatre 503), Holes (NYT) and words words words (Tricycle). As well as Hotbed, she is also currently writing new plays for Birmingham Rep and Quicksilver Theatre.
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The Junction 1 |
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