This is a Chair by Caryl Churchill
Advice to Iraqi Women by Martin Crimp
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The protection of children is a priority. Your house is a potential war zone fo a child: the corners of tables, chip pans, and the stairs - particularly the stairs - are all potential sources of harm. A car, just like a home, just like an orchard, just like a zip, is a minefield for a child. Don't let your child burn. Even on a hazy day it might still burn. - Advice to Iraqi Women, Martin Crimp
After the success of their 2007 season of Villanus (‘…a profoundly intriguing work’ RealTime), daring new theatre company Welcome Stranger returns to Trades Hall with a compelling double bill of short works. Along for the ride is Because of Ghosts’ Reuben Stanton (‘This is beautiful, rewarding stuff’ The Age) to create an unmissable night of theatre.
One of Caryl Churchill’s most stylistically challenging texts, This is a Chair defies the traditional boundaries of theatre. Churchill looks at the political through the eyes of the personal, awakening the audience to the deeply intimate nature of political tension. This is a Chair is a series of surreal scenarios, named after the political headline they seek to excavate; for example, the UK and China’s diplomatic position on Hong Kong is unpicked through an argument about fidelity between Tom and Leo. Churchill’s scenarios theatricalise French surrealist René Magritte’s artistic conceit Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe), at once contradicting and demanding comparison to the reality they label.
The work is paired with Martin Crimp’s powerful and engaging Advice to Iraqi Women. A scathing satirical attack on modern society, Advice to Iraqi Women asks an important question: how can we begin to extol advice upon a society in which we have created terror and danger?
Who would worry about the UV rays in their backyard over the potential threat of their child dying in an ambushed bus? Advice to Iraqi Women is a short play of massive impact. More than an agit-prop comment on the Iraqi war, Crimp’s play is sharp satire of our own society.
Praise for This is A Chair ‘Churchill, who constantly reinvents dramatic form, has come up with something compelling and strange, an intimate revue about the increasing surreality of modern life.’ - The Guardian
Praise for Advice to Iraqi Women ‘… A perfect example of how resonance is achieved by indirection and metaphor.’ - Aleks Sierz, Performing Arts Journal
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Welcome Stranger presents THIS IS A CHAIR by Caryl Churchill Directed by Lauren Barnes Performed by Rhys Auteri, Kristy Barnes-Cullen, Michael Finney, Raphael Hammond, John Latham, Tania Lentini, Vlad Mijic, Ben Mitchell, Harriet O'Donnell and Kim Swalwell Original Music composed by Reuben Stanton Produced by Rebecca Dunsdon Assistant Director Avi Lipski Set Design by Rhys Auteri & Vlad Mijic Illustrations by Vlad Mijic & Harriet O'Donnell Graphic Design Rhys Auteri Stage Manager & Lighting Op Laura Adams Costume Designer Uyen Nguyen Sound Op & Costume Laura Griffin Lighting Tech Katie Sfetkidis Dates: January 30 - February 10, 2008 Venue: New Ballroom, Trades Hall Time: Wed - Sun, 8pm Tickets: $17/$12 |
Some people were employed to write about This Is Good Advice. Here's some of what they said: "It's simple and powerful and very effective... a chance to see a couple of plays by two of Britain's major playwrights that otherwise wouldn't get an airing here performed by an interesting young company. Well worth a look." - Alison Croggon, Theatre Notes "The performances assume a black hilarity, mercilessly skewering the paranoia generated by overdeveloped responses to child protection." - Cameron Woodhead, The Age "...Welcome Stranger, considering this as well as their backlog of productions, are, like Crimp and Churchill, unafraid of pushing boundaries. It's a double bill worth seeing to challenge your notions of theatre." - Chris Summers, Theatargh |
