Director: Stephen Darcy
Performances in Rose Theatre
Croatia. One family, three generations, one house. A terrible war, and a nation recovers. Decades later, another war and the nation splits apart. In 1945, Rose Kos moves into a new house with her baby Maša as Yugoslavia rebuilds from the ruins of war; in 1990 Maša runs the same house with her history teacher husband as hostilities between Serbia and Croatia threaten the whole nation. In 2011 the house is run by Maša’s youngest daughter Lucija, as family and nation see their future in a union with Europe.
Tena Štivičić’s drama dramatises a national story through an epic family saga. it was performed to great reviews at the National Theatre in 2014.
Director: Hasan Mahamdallie
Performances in Barn Theatre
Passage by Christopher Chen
A fantasia inspired by E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. An encounter between two imaginary countries that are just that: imagined by their own citizens, and by citizens of the other country. Country X is occupied by Country Y. Everyone does their best to be civil, and to get on with their lives, but is it possible to be friends with someone who has stolen your country, your freedom and your self-respect? Chen’s play is a sharp and disturbing study of power relations and confused perceptions.
Christopher Chen is an Obie award-winning playwright whose full-length works have been produced and developed across the United States and abroad, including The Lincoln Centre, New York and London’s Finborough and Arcola Theatres.
Director: Lucy Betts
Performances Rose Theatre
1660s London: Charles II is on the throne as a new age of license and lewdness has begun. In a playhouse in Drury Lane, London, we meet Nell Gwynn, a woman of ill repute and an ‘orange hawker’ whose quick wit and remarkable beauty soon get her noticed. Just as the King’s Company face financial ruin, Charles Hart notices Nell’s talents and proposes that she should join the company as the first woman to play a female character. Dismay and outrage turn to appreciation and the new word “act-ress” is coined. As Nell brings exuberance and anarchy to a traditionally male world, she comes to the attention of the King, and finds herself plunged into the nest of vipers that is the Royal Court.
Nell Gwynn’s uproarious play had a successful run at the Globe theatre in 2015, transferring to the West End the following year.