New production company Glasgow Actor will be making their debut at The Tron Theatre’s intimate Changing House venue this February with a brand new play, LIKE THIS... directed by Iain Heggie and written by Julie Tsang. Read more …
Ruth doesn’t know if the things her man asks her to do are right or wrong. She doesn’t feel strongly either way. So should she go along with them? Where should she draw the line? And is she all she seems?
Julie Tsang’s bold and uncompromising play is set in a world of uncertain morals where a woman is tested on how far she will go to keep her man and asks whether, by going along with him, she runs the risk of unlocking her own dark desires. Drawing inspiration from works which explore the relationships between men and women such as Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago this is Tsang’s first play.
“I have always been fascinated by how far a woman will go to keep a man, and the power struggles which can occur within relationships.” says Tsang. “In Like This… I wanted to focus on ‘living in the moment’ and the impact that one dominating partner in a relationship can have on what the other will and will not do”.
Having worked as an actor for a number of years, Tsang was keen to create her own work and approached director Iain Heggie who had been her lecturer while at university. One of Scotland’s leading playwrights, Heggie is well known to Tron audiences as both a writer and director of works including The Tobacco Merchant’s Lawyer and Wide Asleep.
For the first five minutes, when couple Ruth (Stephanie Falls) and Karl (Gavin Purdie) meet on a park bench and exchange loaded phrases, it seems that might be what we get. Sadly there is another hour and a half to come, during which this early promise is trashed.
The actors do their best, with Gavin Purdie in compelling form as Karl, but overall, this is a low energy production that does no-one involved many favours, least of all a young writer with plenty to offer, but lots to learn about theatre, and how it works.
Tron Theatre, Glasgow from Wednesday February 16, 2011, until Saturday February 19, 2011. 8.00pm. More info: www.tron.co.uk
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