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Crazy Jane

Crazy Jane

She dances. She dances alone. Always alone. Always twisting away just out of reach – ever beyond your touch, beyond your embrace, beyond your gaze” Read more …

Birds of Paradise Theatre Company present the world premier of Crazy Jane – the story of Jane Avril, star of the Moulin Rouge and immortalised in Toulouse Lautrec’s iconic posters.

Jane invites you in to her life where she will tell you of her extraordinary journey from the back streets and brothels of Paris via the asylum wards of the Salpêtrière Asylum and on to the palace of women, the Moulin Rouge. Join her, Professor Charcot and his junior staff Drs Freud, Tourette, Jung and Alzheimer in the waltz of modern psychiatry, popularly known as The Fools Dance.

Crazy Jane is a spectacular theatre, dance event with an original razor sharp score by Scottish hip hop artists Hector Bizerk.


The critical consensus

Flawed but watchable, and Jessica Brettle and Sergey Jakovsky's set and lighting looks gorgeous, evoking Paris at its most enigmatic.

***(*)(*)Lorna Irvine, Across the Arts, 01/06/2015

This is a spectacle brought to life by the design and soundtrack; a unique and imaginative experience. Encore une fois s’il vous plaît.

****(*)Rachael Hickman, The Public Reviews, 31/05/2015

The show is sustained, though, by two wonderful performances from Rachel Drazek and Pauline Knowles as the younger and older Jane, both acting and dancing with a rare, haunting power and sadness.

****(*)Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 31/05/2015

Culminating in a excellent dance sequence that celebrates Jane's triumph over adversity, Crazy Jane is a impressive production that uses a historical setting to take a contemporary look at the perception of disability in society.

***(*)(*)Jordan Shaw, The List, 01/06/2015

Nicola McCartney’s play about Jane Avril is staged with a restless combination of back projections, dance routines and multiple languages.

***(*)(*)Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 01/06/2015

There are compensations in Sergey Jakovsky’s atmospheric video projections and some fine colour lighting from Brettle, but you’re left longing for some of the kinetic energy of Lautrec’s iconic posters or of Baz Luhrmann’s dizzying 2001 feature-length pop video, Moulin Rouge!

***(*)(*)Allan Radcliffe, 01/06/2015

A dancing, twisting, hypnotic experience, only fractionally let down by a slightly slow start, and a cast of varying ability.

***(*)(*)Michael Shand, TVBomb, 11/06/2015


Features about Crazy Jane

Nicola McCartney--Crazy Jame

Neil Cooper, Coffee-Table Notes, 26/05/2015

Where and when?

On Tour, from Thursday May 28, 2015, until Saturday June 13, 2015.

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