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[BLANK]: (National Theatre Connections Edition) (Oberon Modern Plays)

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With Dead Ringers, I thought, well, death can be funny, heartbreaking, heroic or sad on screen, but birth is never on screen. The pragmatism around pregnancy and childbirth is wild to me. I can’t believe we don’t talk about it more. With The End We Start From, it made complete sense to me to bring that experience of motherhood and birth alongside climate disaster – the floods, the fear, the poetic, the cinematic.

Little Light was actually her first full-length script, Birch explains: written just after she left university, it has echoes of her own life. “Of course it’s fictional, but I wanted to write about sisters – that relationship can be so complicated. It’s an exploration of grief and of family; there’s something very particular about when families get together and tell stories about their past.” After the experimental fireworks of Revolt and We Want You to Watch, her Orange Tree play, Little Light, comes as a surprise. Though no less candid, it’s more domestic in scale, focusing on two sisters meeting for Sunday lunch (one sister seems on the verge of doing something ghastly with a carving knife) and coming to terms with a bitter secret from their past. Mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, prisoners and guards are the characters that populate Aberg’s take on the work. The 22 scenes vary widely in their setting, tone, and style, but common to many of them are shadowy references to abusive men, rejected pleas for help from other women, and attempts to escape oppressive realities. Birch’s (and Aberg’s) women are variously suffocated by the curveballs thrown at them—from family, friends, or the state—but they are also brave enough to ask for help, to reach outward, even though all these efforts prove tragically fruitless. Billington, Michael (18 October 2019). "[Blank] review – Alice Birch's build-your-own-play experiment". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 6 March 2020. Fisher, Mark (1 August 2018). "A desire for Duras: Katie Mitchell and Alice Birch on the writer's erotic, existential mystery". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 17 March 2020.

Independent | ★★★★ Daily Mail | ★★★★ Daily Telegraph | ★★★★ Evening Standard | ★★★★ Financial Times | ★★★★ Metro | ★★★★ Observer | ★★★★ Sunday Times | ★★★★ The Stage | ★★★★ Time Out | ★★★★WhatsOnStage | ★★★★★ A Younger Theatre | ★★★★ Broadway World | ★★★★ Gay Times | ★★★★ Londonist | ★★★★ Libby Purves for TheatreCat | ★★★★ The Upcoming BLANK ] isn’t simply a playtext, but a theatrical provocation; a blueprint from which theatre-makers can shape their own narratives and build their own productions. Indeed, no two versions of [ BLANK ] are ever likely to be the same, yet every single production will have an indelible bond with the next.

This relationship relies on mutual respect and generosity on both sides, and is carefully nurtured by Clean Break. We support each writers’ unique research process as they navigate the emerging world of their play, often working with specialist partners in the area of criminal justice they choose to explore.Shiv is an interesting character this season because she thinks she’s good but she’s behaving horribly. Whereas most of them accept that they want the money, the drugs and the big, exciting life. There’s an honesty to that that appeals.” Alice Birch wrote her first play, a pantomime, aged seven: ‘Horrible child!’ (Photo: Georgia Ower) When she started out in the industry she certainly faced sexism. “I remember someone telling me that my play, had it been written by man, would have been seen as metaphorical and about the world, but because it was written by a woman, it was a kitchen-sink drama, domestic. Those kind of things feel quite embedded.” Alice Birch’s theatrical provocation is a co-commission between Clean Break and National Theatre Connections.

Alice Birch’s breakthrough play Many Moons, with Esther Smith, left, and Esther Hall. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Guardian She finished Normal People earlier this year, having “hoovered” up the novel during one of her son’s sleepless periods, “so I found it really emotional.” She worked with Rooney on the series. “The job, I felt, was to make myself disappear as much as possible. It’s Sally Rooney’s beautiful work – how do you make that work on screen? It’s not Alice Birch’s interpretation of it, that would be a terrible idea.”

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Each ‘writer in residence’ runs workshops in prisons and with women at our studios, developing their skills and gaining understanding of women’s experiences of the criminal justice system. a b "Bafta awards 2018: full list of winners". The Irish Times. 18 February 2018 . Retrieved 6 March 2020. So far all of her screenplays have been adaptations (or “midwifery” as she calls it), which are slightly less painful than plays. “You have to be really careful of over-romanticising the pain and the torture of the writer, but if I feel like I’m phoning it in, it doesn’t work. I believe that you can tell when the work has cost the maker in some way – that doesn’t mean you have to be ripping your hair out, or bawling your eyes out, but you have to go through something. You have to feel a little bit changed by the end of writing it. Otherwise, what was the point?”

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