Seeing Theatre in London Might Have Saved Me From this Cruel, Cruel World
Ever since I discovered National Theatre Live I’ve been obsessed with the London Theatre Community. The creativity the artists there bring to new works as well as the ways they retell old stories in new ways is so inspiring and just exciting. I’ve loved takes on Shakespeare, Ibsen, and greek tragedies as well as experimental British playwrights like Caryl Churchill and Sarah Kane. It had been a dream of mine since the pandemic to see this level of theatre in person. And in May of 2022, my dream came true.
I was blessed enough to tag along with an old theatre professor of mine on a trip he was facilitating to London with his current undergrad students. While there we saw a wide variety of shows from the big productions at the National, to West End musicals, and even a children’s puppet show at a small theatre on the outskirts of the city. Truly so much great art was witnessed that it’s difficult to even sum up.
I won’t dive into every single production that we saw, but I’ll share that as a whole, seeing not only great performers, but excellent creative directors and designers creating shows that feel like fully realized visions and concepts was so inspiring. I feel like that sounds ridiculous to say but I feel that in America that kind of attention to detail is mainly given to big budget Broadway musicals when there are so many other creative ways to use theatre as an art form and so many artists deprived of the resources to make the art that they’re capable of. I’m sure there are artists in the UK as well that are itching to make their art known, but from what I’ve seen, the overall creative environment in the UK theatre scene is just sizzling with ideas and just inspiration everywhere. It’s impossible to not take an armful of ideas from seeing shows in London and fantasizing about what kinds of ways you can find to apply those ideas to your own art. It’s just fascinating and exciting. I want to go back. Gosh I would love to go back and just live.
-RJM
I will finish this off with a list of the shows we saw!
Shakespeare’s Globe- Henry VIII, Much Ado About Nothing
National Theatre- The Corn is Green, The Father and the Assassin
West End- The Life of Pi, Six, & Juliet
Bridge Theatre- Straight Line Crazy
Almeida Theatre- The House of Shades
Little Angel Theatre- I Want My Hat Back Trilogy
Donmar Warehouse- Mary Seacole
Sadler’s Wells- Any Attempt Will End in Crushed Bodies and Shattered Bones, Requiem of Fire in the Air of the Earth
Bush Theatre- House of Ife
