It`s a warm autumn afternoon. My new website is going live. If you are reading this – it has gone live.
Since I last blogged, three of my short stories have either been published, or accepted for publication. `By Madeleine Black` in Stand Magazine. `Waving in the Wind,` on the website `Words for the Wild.` `From the Dining Room Table` is in the Momaya Press 2018 Short Story Anthology, called `Coming of Age.`
I have seen some excellent plays, along with disappointing ones. Question: how far do you go on a blog in criticising a play? A show I disliked recently had a cast of five, lasted an hour and a half. The actors and director, not to mention the writer had clearly worked hard to bring it to the theatre. I worked hard to get to it, too. Changed tubes twice.
I started looking at my watch from five minutes in, and most of what I felt for the duration was exasperation that the light from the stage didn`t illuminate the dial enough.
So – no. No name mentioned. (Perhaps I`ll get braver…)
A brilliant play, on the other hand, has to be named. At the little Jermyn Street Theatre I saw `About Leo,` by Alice Allemano. Directed by Michael Oakley. The story was about the English-born Mexican artist & writer Leonora Carrington, who lived with Max Ernst the surrealist painter in 1930`s France.
I had heard a radio programme about this astonishing woman, and had previously seen actress Susan Tracy in a lovely play at the Finborough Arms Theatre, so I was expecting something good. But what we found was something better than good.
Lovely colourful way of telling the story. A young journalist doubled as the pointer and relayer of Leonora`s life story, and also, I felt, as the voice of the playwright, relishing an exploration of art, feminism – and youth.
I didn`t look at my watch once. Congratulations to the cast. Phoebe Pryce – (Leonora Carrington (Younger) Susan Tracy – Leonora Carrington (Older) Nigel Whitmey – Max Ernst and Eleanor Wyld – Eliza Prentice.
