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Category Archives: Theatre

Mother and the Reverse-Julia

02 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

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A Christmas Carol, theatre, Unreality, W. S. Maugham

I think I told you how, back in December, at the dress rehearsal for A Christmas Carol, we had the benefit of a row of rows, complete with screaming match in the green room between Nina the Director and Mrs. Cratchit. It was explosive enough to scare children, upset dressers, and perplex casual viewers – but, as is the case with most of these things, it evaporated quite quickly, and with little or no visible damage. Continue reading →

Giorgio

19 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre, Things

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Corona Virus, Giorgio Codognola, Lighting

Giorgio was our Lighting Man. Ah well, he was much more than that. He was a pillar of the Company – had been for five decades. Head Electrician, administrator, Council member, computer wizard, box-office man, prop supervisor… there was little in the day-to-day running of the Company and the Tiny Theatre where Giorgio didn’t have a hand… Continue reading →

To have aspiring minds…

23 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Poetry, Scribbling, Theatre

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christopher marlowe, Poetry, Tamburlaine the Great

Robert Stewart Sherrif

Robert Stewart Sherrif

I love Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great – and by that I mean the first of the two parts. It may be rougher around the edges than his later work, but it’s breathlessly fiery. With his blank iambic pentameter, with the historical subject-matter, and his unpunished bloodthirsty hero, the boy (all of twenty-three at the time) was breaking ground in many ways – and knew it well. Continue reading →

A Christmas Carol – News from the front

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

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A Christmas Carol, backstage, Charles Dickens, prologue

And so the second run of our CC is nearing its end: four more nights now, and we’ll be done for the season.

And you know what? I’m going to miss it terribly. It’s been an intense and very successful affair, sold out from the beginning, with the box office besieged with calls well after all the seats were gone (why, one particular lady called last Saturday, during the show – begging for eight seats, no less…), ticket-less people turning up every night, queuing in hope of a last-minute seat, and a number of very good reviews… Continue reading →

Tiny Tims, Black Cloaks, and Major Rows

06 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

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A Christmas Carol, Backstage Life, Charles Dickens, dress rehearsal, first night, Shakespeare in Love

The second run of “my” A Christmas Carol” opens tonight – and let me boast a little: we’re sold out all the way to January. There is no way on earth to call it anything else than a huge hit, and I’m inordinately proud.

That said… Continue reading →

Tableaux Vivants

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre, Things

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Antonia S. Byatt, Caravaggio, Charlotte Brontë, Louisa May Alcott

I’ve always loved the idea of tableaux vivants. Enacting a painting, or a scene from a story – in one long frozen moment complete with props and costumes… Half theatre, half illustration. It appeals very much.

I remember reading Behind a Mask, one of Louisa May Alcott’s gothic stories, during a mostly sleepless overnight train ride… Continue reading →

Missing the Squirrels

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

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dress rehearsal, lighting design, theatre

I think I told you in passing that I parted ways with the Squirrels… It happened earlier this year – around March, actually – and there were Reasons. It was a hard thing to do, after a decade with them, and a much longer time, if on and off, with Gemma the Director – but I had choices to make, and… Reasons.

It was a mostly civilised affair: I explained, and teared up a little, and they were mostly quite nice about it, and some of them actually teared up in turn. So I came away, and exchanged calls and emails with Gemma now and then, but never acted on the standing invitation to go and sit through rehearsal with them – because… well, I’d come away. I’d come away, and I had Reasons, and I didn’t want to tag along unofficially – much less to be dragged in again “just this once”… Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Writers

10 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by la Clarina in Stories, Theatre

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A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, plagiarism, The Dead Heart, Watts Phillips

Gordon Craig in The Dead Heart

In 1859, as A Tale of Two Cities was being first serialized in weekly instalments in Dickens’ own magazine, All The Year Round, a play by Watts Phillips, called The Dead Heart, made its stage debut at the Adelphi, to much success.

Phillips, a novelist and playwright, had had little luck lately, because he insisted on writing serious, near-austere pieces that pleased the critics (and, apparently, the Queen) more than they did the melodrama-loving general public.

The Dead Heart, though, a stirring tale of the French Revolution, filled with thwarted love, howling injustice, epic struggles, evil abbés, heroic sacrifice, and so on, was a different matter – all the more so because very soon people started to notice the close resemblance between the play and that new novel by Mr. Dickens… Continue reading →

Quick-changing Scrooge

15 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Theatre

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A Christmas Carol, Backstage jobs, Charles Dickens, quick-change

And so, thanks to A Christmas Carol, I now have another backstage job to add to my theatre resumé.

Because yes, we debuted last Saturday, and it went enormously well, and we’re very nearly sold out until January, and have actual waiting lists… And usually, at this point, I’ve done what I had to do, and can sit back and enjoy the ride, right? Not so this time! Continue reading →

Psychoanalyzing Puck

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by la Clarina in History, Stories, Theatre

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Accademia Teatrale Campogalliani, Arthur Rackham, fairy tales, Psychoanalysis, Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling, staged readings

So, my own Lunedì is right behind the corner…

The Lunedìs are this series of weekly staged readings centred around a theme – and last year we had Greek Tragedy. And we also had the members of a Psychoanalysis Club following the readings with some sort of analysis and debate. I know it sounds weird – but it worked really well: eager audiences loved the readings and then debated with gusto, and the house was beyond packed for six consecutive Mondays… Continue reading →

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