Scarborough by Fiona Evans
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
Forbidden desire... A couple laugh, quarrel and make love, but don't dare go out of this faded seaside hotel room... You'll feel so close you could almost reach out and touch them, you could almost smell them. FUNNY, TENDER, UNPREDICTABLE. 5-star Edinburgh Fringe First Winner... A Sell Out...
Reviews
Holden Street Theatres and Chalk Farm
Scarborough Written by Fiona Evans, Directed by Martha Lott
***** The Advertiser - Samela Harris
**** 1/2 Adelaide Theatre Guide - Jamie Wright
WINNER of Advertiser Award for best Theatre
Scarborough was also the first show in the Directors' Choice Series for '09 the second will be announced very soon as it si subject to funding. Scarborough sold out and we increased the allocation by shifting the furniture. Congratulations have to go to the two amazing actors who dealt with the set being shifted each night to accommodate audience because we sold out...Yay! It was an incredible experience and after performing 69 shows the actors deserved a drink at the end of the season. You can now see Emily Branford in 'Shock Jocks' at the University Theatre Guild... Don't miss her she is Fab and Sebastian has just celebrated his 19th Birthday. We are hoping to tour Scarborough and so keep your eyes peeled.
Winner of the Holden Street Theatres Edinburgh Award & Presented in association with Dogstar Theatre
****1/2 Reviewed by Matt Byrne - Sunday Mail
This is a intimate, engaging theatre experience, not to be missed if you can get a ticket. Fiona Evans' telling tale of a lusty weekend between a cradle-snatching teacher and her testosterone-tipped teen lover in a lovelorn seaside hotel room is heart-wrenching stuff.
Director Martha Lott has neatly shoehorned the action and the audience into a small room: yes, you become part of the furniture.
It's an up-close encounter, featuring two excellent performances from Emily Branford as the frustrated gym teacher Lauren and Sebastian Freeman as her mischievous but misguided toy boy.
The chemistry between the two works tragically well.
SCARBOROUGH is intimate theatre at its most proximate. Almost like pieces of furniture, the audience shares a tiny bedroom with the two cast members. They hug the walls or sit in the corner while, mainly on the bed, the tense saga of the PE teacher and her student evolves.
It is an illicit tryst, one fraught with danger and heartbreak. This is a beautifully written piece – tight, taut and quite short. Director Martha Lott has been ingenious in the use of this unusual space and in keeping the mood quiet electric between the two protagonists.
Emily Branford and Sebastian Freeman thrust and parry, play and analyze through the emotional gamut – and one realizes that one is so enmeshed in their predicament that one has become more fly-on-the-wall than audience.
An experience and a half
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* * * * * Samela Harris - The Advertiser
Reviewed by Sam Ryan
Scarborough is a fast and furious immersion into the lives of a young couple with a secret as they spend a dirty weekend together at a quintessentially naff English hotel in the seaside town of Scarborough. With the audience squeezed into the tine, chintz-laden hotel room with the actors, it's hard not to feel voyeuristic as you lean against the wall or prop yourself on the windowsill and watch this story of forbidden love unfold. Brilliantly acted by Emily Branford and Sebastian Freeman (who have their English
accents down pat), we are plunged into the lives of Lauren, a teacher in the late 20's, and
Daz, her 15-year-old pupil, as we chart their relationship from carefree lust to the claustrophobic fear of being caught. Fiona Evans' funny, thought-provoking and award-winning play went down a storm at the Edinburgh Fringe, and looks set to do every bit as well here.
Don't miss it.
The Fix - Rachel Broadley
Lauren and Daz are lovers with a secret. A secret that keeps them locked up in their hotel room in the beach side town of Scarborough where they came to get away. They have transgressed the boundaries and their relationship is in shaky territory.
Over the course of the weekend, through a series of vignettes, the tensions, power struggles and insecurities of Lauren (played by Emily Branford) and Daz (played by Sebastian Freeman) are played out. They are both, in their own way, vulnerable. Branford and Freeman are excellent in their portrayals of characters entwined in an unhealthy love affair.
The set (really the board room of the neighboring Nature Association of SA Inc.) is such a claustrophobic and intimate space you feel too self-conscious to cough. You can reach out and touch the actors, you can see what they were reading over their shoulders and the seemingly secret glances that they give each other. The mixture is the discomfort and intrigue of the voyeur.
At first the intimacy and being thrown into the intensity of the scene jars you, for the story is elliptical, showing you the final scene first before taking you back to the scenes leading up to that. At first the action and the dialogue seem unreal and stilted, but soon you are in the theatrical moment as secrets are revealed, passions mapped and depth of character plumbed.
Scarborough remains true to its English origin, with the actors taking on British accents and reading The Sun and British magazines. However, the set could be any cheap hotel or motel room, anywhere.
The direction and choreography is tight in this kind of space, the actors working hard to seamlessly not bump or step into the audience as they dance, cuddle and fight their way from scene to scene. Director Martha Lott has done a great job to bring out the emotional tension in this piece.
For the loaded nature of the relationship between the two characters (audiences may make their own judgments) the play pulls no moral punches, leaving the audience to question for themselves. This is a piece which will leave you thinking, and whose emotional force will not leave you easily.
MORE INFO
Forbidden desir...A couple laugh, quarrel and make love, but don't dare go out of this faded seaside hotel room...You'll feel so close you could reach out and touch them, you could almost smell them. Funny, tender, unpredictable. 5-star Edinburgh Fringe First Winner, Directors' Choice 09
A couple get ready to celebrate Daz's birthday but when the time comes they can't leave the room. He wants her, she wants him and they can't have each other.
Step into the faded two star hotel room in the seaside town of Scarborough and witness this naughty secret. Stand amidst the peeling wallpaper and find somewhere to sit on the un-matching furniture whilst this couple enjoy their weekend away.
Brought to you by the Holden Street Theatre Company Inc; the Team who brought you 'What I Heard About Iraq by Simon Levy' winner of the first Advertiser Fringe Award for 2007. With an all South Australian Cast and Crew and Directed by Martha Lott as a part of the Directors' Choice Season 09.
"Fiona Evans' tough, concise writing, brilliantly capturing the shifting emotions underlying the characters' relationship." The Stage Scotland
"The story line is not original but the staging and writing certainly are... insightful and moving. Get in before word gets around. This will be a sell out show" British Theatre Guide
Feb 23 - 24, 26 Prv $12, Mar 1 - 5 All Tix $15 Mar 6 - 8, 10 - 15 & 17 - 22 7pm & 8pm on 23 Feb and 8 Mar, 7pm, 8pm & 9pm all other nights
A $23 C/FB $17 BankSA $21