Play Ground

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Is this a play? Performance art? Essay? Real or not real? This play/text/email chain was originally presented as a live performance and digital experience combination, then printed onto paper, and now thrust back onto the internet by us in the form of audio podcast exploration. Heavy. 

We talk chronic illness, the digital body, and the horrors/freedoms that the internet brings. Also, how cool Eve Leigh is in general. E...

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East coast round 2! 

We talk aliens, village gossip, and the strange prescience of this play written in 1973 about 1907 when being read in 2025.

FAIRYTALE UPDATE:

I have searched and can find nothing substantial about this fairytale or why it is the birth of drama in children. If anyone has any ideas please get in touch.

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Once again we dive into a time bending play about sad women. This time it's Lucy Kirkwood's 2020 play The Welkin; set in 18th century Suffolk/Norfolk, 12 women must decide the fate of another in this epicly jam-packed courtroom(ish) drama. We talk oppression, class solidarity, and jokes about Lowestoft.

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We recorded this 3 years ago and then forgot to make more podcasts. It holds up!!! Declaring this the end of season 1, we'll be back with certified fresh content in 2 weeks time.

Sam Shepard's True West is about two things: truth and the wild west. Oh, and two brothers. Oh, and Picasso. And coyotes. It's pretty famous.

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Step 1) Nuclear Meltdown
Step 2) Gang Warfare Over Simpsons Quotes
Step 3) ????
Step 4) The Greatest Story Ever Told

If you're not familiar with the play of post-apocalyptic pop-culture mythology, prepare to have your mind blown, as we discuss Anne Washburn's play all about The Simpsons and the fusion of high/low art.

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Despite the characters explicitly talking about the cold all the time, prepare to hear about some very  hot and sweaty goings on in this William's classic. When a young hot guy walks into a Southern town that's afraid of hot people, there's prejudice and hatred to deal with on top of all the wild animal metaphors that Tennessee loves so much.

We discuss why the town is so afraid of hot people, ...

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Up front:
1) TW, this episode contains quite frank discussions of a variety of grisly topics, including sexual assault and suicide.
2) This podcast is about the original play, NOT the musical version (though we do of course mention the musical as how could you not!? In particular the recent Almeida production which, spoiler alert, we love)

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It was inevitable that at some point we'd bump into the bard on our ever winding theatrical-textual journey, and we do so what in our un-researched opinion is 'one of the more obscure ones.' Cymbeline is a play about a young couple who vow their love to each other but then hate each other but then don't really and also this horrible man named Cloten who is an idiot and a criminal and also some brot...

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You Stupid Darkness! takes us into the world of Brightline, a call centre for those who need to talk to someone about their problems, and the 4 volunteers who answer those calls late at night. Meet Frances, Angie, Jon, and Joey the work experience boy, as they navigate life and each other.
Oh, and also the apocalypse is in full swing.

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The Flick is a 2013 play set in a cinema, in which you the audience sit where the screen is and watch as three employees get into some serious sweeping. This often silent and uneventful play is brim full of sad heartfelt characters, musings on what it means to be a grown up, and terrible opinions about films.
Also discussed:
- The power of celluloid film
- Monkeys

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The Hothouse (so called because the house is...hot?) is a 1980 play by Harold Pinter which was actually written in 1958, but still has his signature style of heightened language, biting edge and yes, lots of famous pauses. It's been a while since we did one of these, so there's lots of catching up to do on theatre and genre-based theatre, as well as a deep dive into the characters and unspecified horror that...

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Six Characters is a modern classic. Or maybe just a classic. It's hard to know where the age boundaries for those things are. Either way in this play Pirandello brings an early example of going full meta in theatre, introducing a rehearsal room full of actors (and maybe the real director, stage manager and technician) to a group of fictional characters that have come to life and need help in finishing their drama...

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The Woods is poetry on the stage. Okay, so all plays are poetry on the stage, but this one even more so. Inhabiting an American woodland and also a British kitchen, our protagonist 'The Woman' is continually haunted by 'The Wolf,' an evil figure who may be her son that was, or an abusive partner, or her inner psyche, or the outside world, or probably all of these rolled into one.
It's real...

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This is the second in McCraney's 'Brother Sister Plays' trilogy, though is the first one he wrote. Drawing on Yoruba cosmology transposed into present day Louisiana, The Brothers Size is a poetic yet brutally grounded story of two brothers trying to reconnect after one returns from a stint in prison. Emotions abound.

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This 2000 play is a landmark text in verbatim theatre. Documenting the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Laramie, Wyoming resident Matthew Shepard, The Laramie Project is a collation of almost 2 years of interviews with Laramie residents. All at once it is a portrait of a town, a stark warning, an examination of everyday human hypocrisy, an advocation for gay rights, an exploration of loss, and a meta-investigation into...

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This 1930s play is about two single women who run a girls' school together, and how their lives are brought crashing down when a student accuses them of lesbianism.  We discuss the play's treatment of queer issues, its place (or not) on today's stage, and the eerily accurate depiction of lockdown life in Act 3.

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Part 2 of an Oresteia double bill, this time we take a look at Robert Icke's totally new adaptation of last episode's classic. We talk altering plot points, phycological complexity, and the time period-fluid setting of Icke's plays.

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First part of an Oresteia double bill, this time we take a look at a straight translation of the original. We talk gender representation, off-stage gore, and the complexities of justice (which is funner than it sounds)

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Visit the official podcast twitter @playgroundpoddy
Chat to host Nancy @N_Netherwood
Chat to host Sam in person if you h...