The Young and Hun­gry Fes­ti­val of New The­atre is on at BATS The­atre. (Hap­py 19th birth­day Y&H!)  It’s an excit­ing fes­ti­val that sup­ports young per­form­ers and crew in gain­ing expe­ri­ence in the­atre. This year the three plays are…

 

Drag­onlore. Writ­ten by Nic Samp­son; direct­ed by Richard Dey.

Alan, Loren, Dena and Chris are gath­er­ing togeth­er on their friend Jack’s par­ents farm to take part in an epic LARP­ing tour­na­ment. Alan has to drag along his lit­tle broth­er Frank (cause his Mum told him to) but he’s pret­ty con­fi­dent it’s going to be a great week­end. Jack is run­ning the tour­na­ment aid­ed by farm­hand Robert. How­ev­er, they haven’t played as a team for a while and peo­ple have changed…

A fun­ny explo­ration of friend­ship, rival­ry, and iden­ti­ty set in the world of Live Action Role Play­ing.  There’s plen­ty of phys­i­cal action which is well exe­cut­ed. The cast are sup­port­ed by the design team. The set by Lau­ren Stew­art has 3‑d geo­met­ric  inter­pre­ta­tions of pixel­lat­ed clouds and trees. My favourite show on the night.

 

Atlas/Mountains/Dead But­ter­flies. Writ­ten by Joseph Harp­er; direct­ed by Ralph Upton.

Atlas is strug­gling under the weight of the world. He’s hop­ing to find some way to keep it sup­port­ed after he’s gone. Rhys and Phoebe live in a house with a drip­ping tap. The plumber is called in. Mean­while, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Green par­ty and a man on the street have their own sto­ries to tell…

A sur­re­al med­i­ta­tion on activism, the envi­ron­ment, and social pres­sure. I par­tic­u­lar­ly liked the sound­scape in this one. I felt that all the actors were real­ly ground­ed in their roles.  Spe­cial men­tion to Ash James who brought lots of ener­gy to her role. Of the three plays, this one will stay with me the longest.

 

Trash­bag. Writ­ten by Georgina Titheridge; direct­ed by Ali­son Walls.

Mad­dy is throw­ing a par­ty. Her flat­mate Otto is help­ing (sort of) to get the flat pre­sentable. Her boyfriend Chris shows up ear­ly, but not to help. Plus he’s invit­ed Eric – who she real­ly doesn’t want to see again. As the night wears on, and peo­ple come and go, Mad­dy has to deal with a num­ber of dra­mas.

This is the one I con­nect­ed with the least. The cast all had moments where they shone but some of the tran­si­tions weren’t as smooth as they could have been. They may have relaxed into the per­for­mance as the sea­son pro­gress­es.