Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ
Tuesday 7th – Saturday 25th March 2017
This is one for me. I have a charity Words for the Wounded that supports wounded troops and this sounds most interesting.
Althea Theatre (There’s No Place Like) present the world premiere of One Last Thing (For Now), inspired by love letters from times of conflict in different cultures and languages. The production, written and developed over the last two years by Lilac Yosiphon with the ensemble, is a universal look at the language of love, the wounds of war and everything in between.
An officer in Russia cannot bear to tell a woman, far away in Wales, that her husband died. Instead, he writes her love letters pretending to be him. A woman in London awaits a letter that will never come while another skypes love messages to her boyfriend in Afghanistan. A soldier addresses his last letter to a former teacher who refused to join the army. And, at the heart of the play, is a story of a woman giving up her own limbs to make contact with her husband, a recent amputee, in the trenches a hundred years ago.
The play interweaves narratives from WWI in Northern England, WW2 in France and Germany, the civil war in Colombia and stories from contemporary Britain and Israel. The internationally diverse cast play British and non-British characters (regardless of their own nationality) and perform in their native tongue as well as other languages. This international collaboration aims to empower a compassionate and honest cultural exchange.
As a part of the show, and the idea that we can better relate to foreign situations through familiar ones, there will be call out for love letters from the Borough of Islington and one scene in the show will be inspired and devised using one of these local letters.
The play connects different aspects of war (the difficulty to describe the violence involved, the need to maintain an illusion, conscientious objection), reflecting on the different injuries which occur on the front line together with the emotional impact these have to the community at home.
…. War wounds never quite heal, war letters are never quite forgotten; both just get hidden away by old memories and dusty pieces of cloth, waiting to be found…
Performance Dates Tuesday 7th – Saturday 25th March 2017
Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm
Saturday and Sunday matinees, 3pm
Twitter @AltheaTheatre, @ORLTheatre, #OLT4Now
Location Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London EC1V 4NJ, www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk. https://theatre503.com/
Box Office Tickets are available priced £16 (£12 concessions)
All matinees priced £10
Available from Old Red Lion Theatre Box Office and www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk or 0844 412 4307
**Notes If you have a love letter connected to the borough of Islington waiting to be found, please contact info@altheatheatre.com as one scene will be inspired by the local community.