Reviews

Cups of tea, gardening, and listening to the radio, dominate the world of aging-spinsters Janet and Ursula Widdington, in pre World War 2, Cornwall in 1937. That is until the a young man is washed up on the beach below their house, close to death. Nursing him back to health reveals he is a talented Polish violinist seeking fame in America. The sisters find themselves becoming progressively possessive of their stranger, especially Ursula whose unfulfilled feelings eventually surface with poignant results.

Princess Ida was the eighth collaboration between those giants of the operetta Arthur Seymour Sullivan and William Scwhenck Gilbert.  It is an adaptation of a musical farce that Gilbert had written in 1870 which in turn was based on the poem The Princess by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 

A Deal is an eye-opening topical provocation, full of laughs and insights into the virtues or otherwise of life in the US and Communist China.

By émigré Chinese writer, Zhu Yi, her play has been performed in her adopted New York and twice in China, but a third production seems impossible unless she adds an assertion that China’s is the best system.  Artists there are suddenly more tightly controlled.

Award-winning playwright the late Horton Foote is most notably remembered for his screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird, however he is also responsible for many fine plays that explore the human condition. Writing from experience and taking inspiration from people he met through his youth, he has often been compared to Chekhov for his ability to capture the spirit of what it means to be human.

Co-founder of Red Phoenix Theatre and Director of this black comedy, Libby Drake has assembled a cast of 13 to bring it to life…or death, however you wish to look at it.