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#Little theatre reviews free#
Lennon imagines the Coppergate woman breaking free from her display box, and revealing herself to be a Valkyrie a servant of Odin (Paul Mayo Mason) who was sent to the battlefields to choose the slain who were worthy of a place in Valhalla, the palace of Odin, where they would feast and drink until the Ragnarök, when they would march out to fight at the side of Odin, slaying the giants and releasing the world into a glorious new beginning. That said, it IS a solid, imaginative piece of musical theatre, that utilises direct address in parts, with words by Lennon, and musical composition and direction by Nicolas Lewis. The Coppergate Woman doesn’t come close to a Gig-Theatre vibe one acoustic guitarist at the end of the show, a bit of audience clapping, and a splash of R.E.M.’s ‘It’s The End Of The World’ doesn’t quite hit that mark.
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Gig-Theatre is the storytelling, the beat and the music working in harmony with, and responsive to, the reactions of each individual audience, that changes from performance to performance, but always allows room for interaction and play of a kind that isn’t found in an ordinary musical theatre show. As a piece of storytelling it is sound, but when approached to write the piece, Lennon was asked to provide a script that would have a Gig Theatre vibe to it which she is well qualified to do, and has executed well in previous collaborations, but somehow it fell short here something that I don’t in any way think was her fault, but appears to have been a directorial misunderstanding of the genre task they had set her. It’s an interesting, intelligent and ambitious concept that works well. To tie these two narratives together, Lennon draws upon the myths of the Norse gods. The second is factual the tremendous tolls of loneliness, mental health issues, barriers to communication, suppressed grief, and separation from loved ones, that living through a prolonged lockdown took on so many, not only in York, but universally. The first is historical the remains of a Viking woman which are displayed in the city’s JORVIK Viking Centre. The inspiration is found in two community realities. The Coppergate Woman is written by Hull playwright Maureen Lennon, an Associate Artist of Middle Child Theatre, whose impressive portfolio to date has shown a good understanding of the importance of place and personal experience.įern (Joanne Rule) surrounded by her Norns “Imaginative” It’s an artistic form that, from the writing of the script to putting the play on stage, requires knowledge and skill in group dynamics and processes of personal and community change, usually taking its inspiration from something within the community itself, whether it be geographical, historical or functional, and it relies on partnership rules between the director(s) and the participants.
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York has a rich seam of Community Theatre running through it that may have begun in medieval times with the Mystery Plays but has been embraced wholeheartedly by the city ever since and is an incredible lever for personal and collective empowerment. The Coppergate Woman is York Theatre Royal creating a new community production with an almost clean slate – the only ‘remainers’ are Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson (co-directors on this), with Sara Perks brought in as Set Designer, in a theatrical landscape that is profoundly different to the one that existed in pre-pandemic days. It is wrong to lay claim to another battalion’s victories, and to make connections with what has gone before is misleading.
#Little theatre reviews professional#
The Chief Executive has changed, in place of an Artistic Director there is now a Creative Director – a disparate entity, and the make-up of the tried and tested, and very accomplished, team of professional creatives that carried through each of those productions has completely gone. Some of those productions have been done in promenade, some have revolved around inspiring landmarks of the city, some have seen a number of those community casts go on to fulfilling professional careers, and some have had incredible ongoing projects emerge from them, but it is fair to say that all were created during the tenure of a very different theatre profile than the one that is in place today. York Theatre Royal has a proven track record of producing huge, glamorous, and truly brilliant, high profile shows that involve both professional actors and community participants in complete synergy with each other. The publicity surrounding The Coppergate Woman has touted York Theatre Royal’s long association with community theatre.
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By Elizabeth Stanforth-Sharpe, August 2022