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Girls & Boys (Oberon Modern Plays): A Play

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As a few people have mentioned if you are a sensitive reader/listener then best you research this a bit more before diving in. Girls & Boys marks the first collaboration between writer Dennis Kelly and director Lyndsey Turner. This is a weird thing. It starts off really nice and light and, since both Kelly and Mulligan are Brits, has a sort of distinctive Richard Curtis (of "Notting Hill" and "Love Actually" fame) thing about it.

The performance by Carey Mulligan was incredible. I was captivated from word one, and I actually wished for more traffic, so I could finish this almost 2 hour audible play. It is clear Kelly fervently believes in mankind despite the violence we’re capable of. He readily agrees. “There’s a tendency to think we’re awful,” he says. “When you watch Planet of the Apes nowadays the apes are the heroes because everyone thinks humans are f---ing awful. Avatar’s the same. But maybe if cows had intelligence they would have invented the internal combustion engine and messed up the climate. Kelly, left, with Tim Minchin at the launch of the Netflix production of Matilda the Musical at the London Film Festival. Credit: Getty ImagesI am reviewing the Audible Original version of the Off-Broadway play Girls & Boys starring BAFTA Award winner and Academy & Tony Award nominee Carey Mulligan. The play was written by playwright Dennis Kelly in 2016.

I saw how my feeling for the woman made a 180-degree turn. I come out of the reading thinking—don‘t ever, ever judge another person. One never knows what another has gone through. Kelly won a Tony award for the original book of the musical (with Tim Minchin writing its memorable songs) and has written the screenplay for the much-anticipated Netflix adaptation, (due in December). “It’s been shot, it’s in the edit now,” he says. “I think it’s really good. It looks amazing, and it’s got a new song at the end that Tim’s written, which is just beautiful. Oddly, I think it feels more emotional than the stage show.” New York City offers plenty of excellent acting courses, but there is no finer master class currently available than the one being presented eight times a week at the Minetta Lane Theatre. It’s there that Carey Mulligan delivers an unforgettable performance in Dennis Kelly’s one-person play Girls & Boys. For anyone interested in the art of stage acting, attendance is mandatory. I’ve met people who have had terrible things happen to them almost on a par with this. What always impresses me is their ability to put one foot in front of the other. You’d think an unimaginable tragedy would make you curl up in a ball, but people don’t. They get up, they move and they continue.”

I'm not sure that I agree with all the conclusions that the author came to in this play. Some of it rings true, while other things are debatable. What I found absolutely brave was that Dennis Kelly had the nerve to ask those questions. The balls. He notes, though, that this is the reason why he hasn’t allowed anyone to revive After the End in Britain for many years. “I’ve seen versions where I felt really f***ing uncomfortable, witnessing what we’re witnessing, because it feels abusive to the actor. I definitely stand by the production we did that Roxana [Silbert] directed [at the Bush Theatre in London in 2005], because I thought it was done sensitively… as someone who’s put audiences through quite a lot.” Kelly co-wrote the sitcom Pulling with Sharon Horgan (above, left) (Photo: BBC) The play was finished long before the Weinstein scandal broke, and Kelly hasn’t changed anything in response, but he sees the sexual harassment of women as part of the same problem of patriarchy and male violence. “Early drafts were much more didactic, and there were loads of statistics about sexual assault, which is about one in five women. If that happened to men it would be something we would sort out, but we don’t. For years we’ve gone, ‘Oh that’s just the way the world is, and men behave badly.’ We often don’t even talk about it. It’s just been part of the wallpaper. Maybe as a result of Weinstein and #MeToo we are at last looking at the wallpaper, and going, ‘That’s enough.’” The innocent sounding Girls & Boys is a searing one- woman show by celebrated playwright Dennis Kelly. A high- wire act balancing comedy and drama, which has stunned audiences in London and New York, its stellar solo role is brilliantly filled here by Justine Clarke.

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