Reviews

Inspired by the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, Elegies was forged in the late 80’s hothouse of American denial and discrimination against those with AIDS. Staged on a giant looped red ribbon of remembrance, thirty actors enter one by one with their own short poetic soliloquy on what their life – and death – meant to them. They’re all there, some stereotypical, others with high drama, most with ordinary powerful stories from the apocalypse.

It’s a great sign when people are lining up to buy tickets to a sold out performance. It’s an even better sign when the curtain opens and all preconceptions of a dusty performance of Shakespeare are washed away by a fiendishly clever set.

The Genesian Theatre was stripped back to the church wall with the stage filled with the word Venice in flashing lights. Looking down on them is a stained glass window of Jesus on the cross from the church building itself.

The Seed, by Kate Mulvany, is a play about the uncomfortable truths that exist in all families, and the disempowering and intrusive nature of war.

Rose, a writer travels with her father from Australia to meet her Irish grandfather in Nottingham, hoping to be rewarded with the Maloney family history. Sifting through the family folklore, Rose’s questions lead her into uncomfortable truths about herself, her family, and ultimately into greater appreciation of their imperfect family bonds.