Andrew Kushnir’s new play, The Division, currently playing in the Studio at Crow’s Theatre, is both a very personal story and an interrogation of some very uncomfortable aspects of Ukrainian history. It’s told, in the present, as a letter to Kushnir’s nephew to be read in maybe fifteen years time when, perhaps, it will be easier to divorce history from current events (and then maybe not…)
How different were sensibilities in seventeenth century England (at least after the Restoration) to contemporary mores? Perhaps less than one might think. Unless you are a woman. And you want to be famous. And you aren’t a queen. All of which presents a problem for young Margaret who leaves her dull, impoverished, gentry family to try her luck at court just as Cromwell and co finally get around to giving Charles I a rather drastic haircut.
So you are a nerdy kid who lives next to a weird family. So weird in fact that they eat “naked spaghetti” and one day the police show up to find that your contemporary has dismembered his father alive with a hacksaw (a joint Christmas present from their mother/wife) and put the bits in a cardboard box labelled “Some Assembly Required” to a repeated sound track of “Raindrops keep falling on my head”. That’s how Monster by Daniel Macivor starts and it’s an unforgettable image that recurs as recollection, dream and film scene throughout a 75 minute one actor tour de force by Karl Ang in the Studio at Factory Theatre.
operaramblings 