London venue’s online collection of performances dating back to 1956 will be free to use for writers, directors and the public
The Royal Court has launched a free digital archive of every play performed at the London theatre since 1956 as a resource for writers, directors and members of the public.
Almost 2,000 plays by more than 1,000 writers are accessible on the theatre’s Living Archive, along with lists of their casts and directors.
Continue reading...The live stream of Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s acclaimed drama has ended but will be available to watch again from 2 April
The Royal Court theatre in London is presenting a day of solidarity with Ukraine that includes a reading on its main stage of Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s play Bad Roads, which explores the brutal effects of war on personal relationships. The reading, at 8pm on 1 April, will be livestreamed on the Guardian website – including in a captioned version – and available again on 2 April to watch for a week.
Bad Roads was first staged at the Royal Court in 2017 in a translation by Sasha Dugdale. Vorozhbit, an acclaimed Ukrainian playwright whose work has also been performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, wove documentary stories of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and Donbas into its impressionistic scenes. Bad Roads explores daily life under siege, hostage-taking, journalism on the frontline, PTSD and sex at a time of war.
Continue reading...When George Devine’s family discovered a Japanese battle flag among his belongings, it led to a three-year quest for answers
“I am not a man for soldiering, although I do tolerably well at it in a very minor role. But there is nothing about it that pleases me, and much that offends … It is a corrupter of morals in the widest sense and a gross waste of man’s time and effort.”
These words were written by George Devine, the actor and founding artistic director of the Royal Court theatre, in a letter to his wife from Burma, where he served in the second world war. The views he expressed reflected what his family – and many in the arts world – regarded as his essential humanity and compassion.
Continue reading...Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London
Pablo Manzi’s political scenes, which span several decades and are powerfully performed, could perhaps lead to a future epic
Thirty years ago, the Royal Court introduced a Chilean playwright, Ariel Dorfman, with Death and the Maiden, a much-revived, twistily structured thriller about South American human rights abuses.
While theatre can have a one-hit-and-run attitude to distant politics, the Court has commendably kept an eye on Santiago. Its international programme mentors new writers in an initiative spawning several Court stagings, including Guillermo Calderón’s B in 2017 and now, in sparky English by the same translator, William Gregory, Una Lucha Contra … by Pablo Manzi.
A Fight Against … (Una Lucha Contra … ) is at the Royal Court theatre, London, until 22 January
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