Producing Organization: Tenth Planet Productions and Ovation
Theatre/Venue: Upstairs at the Gatehouse
City, State: London, UK
Month(s), Year: 16 August - 10 September, 2006
Director: Alexander Holt
Designer #1: Nick Holdridge (Lighting)
Designer #2: Michael Ozouf (Set)
Basic Data Source: http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/13921/playhouse-creatures
Review #1:
Quote:
Even so, the all-female cast manage to excel with what they have. Queen bee behind the curtain, Mrs Betterton, played by the superb Susan Kyd, is an authority with the humorous aside, many pertinent to theatre today. Oracle-like with experience, Mrs Betterton marauds backstage as if it were her own. Onstage too she has all the nuances and tricks which allow her to live past her sell-by date as a player.
Of course, the summit of aspiration for any actress at this time must have been the lusts of noblemen, or better yet, the man who lifted Cromwell’s ban on theatre, the Merry Monarch, himself Charles II. This is what the play offers best, a harsh depiction of life as an actress. Even harsher than today.
Author: Rene Butler
Date: August 24, 2006
Source: http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/13921/playhouse-creatures
Review #2:
Quote:
Set in a ghostly theatre that formerly served as a bear pit, Playhouse Creatures conjures up the backstage world of that first generation of female players - among them 'pretty, witty' former orange-seller Nell Gwynn and the stately Mrs Betterton, wife of the great Shakespearean actor Thomas Betterton...Alexander Holt's handsome production, staged just up the road from Lauderdale House (one-time residence of Nell Gwynn), gathers together a uniformly excellent cast and recreates, with equal conviction, the pleasures and the pains of the female theatrical life.
Author: Robert Shore
Date: August 31, 2006
Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/review-23365260-girls-on-stage.do
Image from Production:
