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That Face

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It also affects the way women, particularly young women, are seen and asked to behave. You once said: ‘Harold Pinter doesn’t have to worry about this shit.’ How do you feel now? I recently saw a revival of another zeitgeisty ‘00s smash, ‘God of Carnage’, and it had very clearly lost its edge with the passage of time.

At some swanky, girls' boarding school our female Flashman (Flash-girl?) Izzy is an appropriately cowardly sadist who eventually ends up gibbering after, with help of heroine Mia, she puts a 13 year-old Arthur substitute into intensive care following an initiation rite that goes wrong. Although 'That Face' is sharply focused and intense, I wonder if the basic concept is really all that new. It's hard not to recollect the mother-daughter relationship in the hit TV comedy 'Absolutely Fabulous' where a wayward mother finds her studious and 'normal' daughter almost impossible to comprehend. I'm not saying that the ideas are identical by any means, but there are similarities. However, in spite of its humour, 'That Face' presents a much more serious and penetrating examination of parent-child relationships. Cite web|url= https://deadline.com/2023/03/dope-girls-bbc-crime-drama-bad-wolf-marek-kohn-book-1235277713/ The play begins, though, with a scene at Mia's school where the initiation ceremony of a new schoolgirl turns sour because Mia has given the thirteen year-old victim a huge dose of her mother's valium, rendering her totally unconscious and, onc suspects, close to death. Anna Burnside. “Letting rip at the middle classes; POLLY STENHAM ; Toxic behaviour by the bourgeoisie was overdue a savaging, says the young playwright – and she’s only just begun to explore it”. The Sunday Times (London), October 4, 2009. https://advance-lexis-com.proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7WSJ-YHC0-YBWN-K3XR-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed May 12, 2019.On occasion, Polly Stenham strives too hard for dramatic effect but few playwrights in their twenties are able to manage this many characters so ably or sustain the action in a play that lasts an hour and three-quarters. On first viewing at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, played in the round in a gloriously grungy setting designed by Mike Britton, the play demonstrated great promise in an atmosphere where both critics and audiences are inclined to be generous. Mia and Henry's parents are estranged. Their father is a wealthy broker who lives in Hong Kong and their mother is a disturbed, self-centred alcoholic who fears and hates her daughter but loves her son so much that she reaches for the bottle whenever he's not around. Henry has given up school supposedly to focus on his artistic skills, but the real reason is to keep his mother on the straight and narrow.

Martha. That’s funny, I did have a son, called Harry, actually. Well, he died, about five hours ago. I’m a little upset. So if you would just— (Stenham 60; Act 1.6). All hope rests with Mia, a girl who might well return to school, excel in her A-levels and go on to become a professional playwright, possibly even before she leaves university. So why adapt Miss Julie, a well-worn canonical work from 1888? Because the story of an aristocrat and her two servants is the perfect vehicle for causing contemporary explosions, she says. “You can get a big star and a big space with a classic, and you can truffle in much more radical material, too. It can be hidden in the Trojan horse of the classic and much more can be detonated inside it.” If Philip Larkin ever needed a play to embody his most famous line, "They f*** you up, your mum and dad", this is it. They may live continents apart but Lindsay Duncan's Martha, every bit as drunkenly vituperative as Edward Albee's earlier model, and self-centred Hugh (a slimy-smooth Julian Wadham) have jointly left 18-year-old Henry and 15-year-old Mia in a terrible state.Scene 7 - Mia meets High in a high class restaurant and has to explain the current home situation with Martha and Henry, she doesn't communicate very well and gets very angry. In 2011 Stenham, along with friend Victoria Williams, opened an art gallery, [8] the Cob Studios and Gallery (named after her art collector father) in Camden, London. [9] Before university she worked for the Ambassador Theatre Group and the Arcola Theatre, and during this time she enrolled in the Royal Court Young Writers Programme and wrote her first play. Billen, Andrew. “Truly a Middle-Class Act.” America’s Current Affairs & Politics Magazine, www.newstatesman.com/theatre/2008/05/mia-henry-school-amplifies. Don't give me that, that...expression. I know you don't get on, but please be nice to her, or if you can't do that, just don't be anything. OK?

It is not just about culture but mental health, too. “Theatre explains things that are hard to articulate,” Shenham says. “Why you would murder your own children, the tragedies, the dark, hidden desires as well as the good things. You forgive humanity, in a way. You see what we can do to each other and understand the imperfections of each other, despite fighting for the world to be a better place.” If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Essay Writing Service That was really fun. I try to take things like that when they come – it’s nice to just keep learning. Scene 5 - "You made your choice to stay Henry and I made mine to leave, it's not my fault she's worse" Over the course of some 95 minutes, the central theme of codependence between parents and children is rather too emphatic, too underlined. The school bullying scene is notable for Mia’s indifference to the plight of the 13-year-old victim of the older girls, while the dorm leader Izzy is convincingly self-centred and cynical. Some of the chat about hierarchies at public school is promising, but underdeveloped. On the other hand, occasionally Stenham introduces a queer sensibility, as when Martha assumes that Henry is gay because she sees him as artistic and gentle, and gender fluidity is indicated when he finishes up by wearing female clothing.Looking at the style of Psychological Realism, it’s as if it’s a pinball of emotions just waiting to explode from your subconscious. The play had many parallels to that of things Polly Stenham experienced when she was growing up. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she attended boarding school. Her father was nothing like Hugh because her father was very caring, and she was very close to him. She wanted to mirror some of the things that actually occurred in her life, but she also wanted to focus on mental illness because it fascinated her. Stenham’s writing is really focusing on the human psyche of those who are suffering from addiction and those around the person with the addiction and how they are affected by it. That Face starts out as a kind of transgender remake of Tom Brown's Schooldays updated to the 21st Century. Polly Stenham, a 20 year-old playwriting debutante, writes with such assurance that one fears that a fair amount of the subject-matter is autobiographical. If that is the case, she, like her surrogate Mia, has endured a lot in her young life. Lyndsay Duncan turns in an exceptionally convincing performance as the self-centred alcoholic, Martha, who has actually failed to grow up and uses almost childish ploys to get her own way. Duncan exposes a mother who has almost lost every ounce of maternal instinct and obligation, though she eventually finds some semblance of redemption. Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. View our services

Polly Stenham wrote her first play, That Face, when she was 19; it opened at the Royal Court, later transferred to the West End, and was widely praised as an extraordinary debut. She has subsequently written three more plays – Tusk Tusk, No Quarter and Hotel – and is currently under commission for new work at the Almeida and National theatres. She is also the co-founder of the Cob Gallery in Camden, north London. Stenham, now 29, was a co-writer on the forthcoming The Neon Demon, a horror film set in the Los Angeles modelling world directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.Jeremy Herrin's direction is as refreshing as the writing. The play flows fluidly with the cast handling scene changes. But some of the characters keep position as if they're fading out of memory as the scene changes takes place. It's a neat and highly effective transition. However, the music is a little on the loud side for my taste, albeit I can see why it needs to jar given the way the characters grate against each other in this topsy-turvy family world. Scene 2 - "I meant whatever as in whatever you name is. Not whatever as in I don't care, I do care" The play received praise from some reviewers, with Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph commenting: Despite her relatively young age, Polly Stenham has published and staged a significant number of plays. Her first Play, That Face, was written when Stenham was only nineteen years old. It was gained critical acclaim and launched Stenham to popularity. The Play established Stenham as a modern playwright who investigates contemporary themes, like dysfunctional families, alcoholism, and drug addiction. The plays Tusk Tusk (2009) and Hotel (2014) soon followed, to name a few.

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