As Mark Shenton noted today the new theatrical season begins this week and it appears that the first offering to be sacrificed to the critical gods deserved its final roasting. The Jellyfish Theatre is a temporary venue apparently built from completely recycled materials. Ecological plays are practically as old as 'message' plays but what I don't understand is why the temporary nature of the build. Surely resources could have been put to much better use staging the play in a venue that already exists. I realise that rents are high for theatre hires etc but think about other options. I have seen theatre on the street; in a hotel; in a disused council house; in a restaurant - in fact I used to direct showcases in a restaurant - so the possibilities for venues for mounting a good ecological play are limited only by imagination.
The imagination that has been put into the build is all well and good but ultimately it is a disposable theatre. It seems that the play being performed there is equally disposable opening to many bad reviews in much of the Press. This is a venture not about the play but about the spirit of the event. Are we critics supposed to sit there and take the play in question on the chin because the company means well? I hope not.
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