Chekov is a name I know well, but sadly his plays are less familiar to me. I’ve always known I should be reading and seeing them, but I just haven’t got round to it. And so, when the opportunity presented itself, in the form of double bill by an independent company in a hip venue on Haggerston canal, it seemed like the ideal place to start.
Farce and satire mingle in Chekov’s plays and the Cyphers theatre company delivered an entertaining presentation of The Proposal and The Boor, at London’s The Proud Archivist. Christopher Anderton, Tom Craig and Victoria Hamblen are the cast, the latter two producing the play alongside director Pavlos Christodoulou, and they act out powerfully and with conviction the words of the Russian playwright. The scene is sparce but the company specialise in incorporating story-telling techniques with a back-to-basics approach, encouraging imagination and collaboration for the theatre experience.
The space is white and bare and the sound ricochets well, meaning that at times the meaning of the lines was lost in favour of volume. But this did not spoil the audience’s enjoyment. Short, punchy and witty, this was 90 minutes of creative reverie well done.
Check out forthcoming productions here.
