Fanny is ejected by her boy-friend James due to a misunderstanding; she is furious. After a horrific confrontation with some boys, she gets taken in by the enigmatic Dr. McIntyre and engages in a relationship convenient to them both in divergent ways.
The gardener Job, who plays a pivotal role, is very fond of Fanny as well as his little white dog. After many twists, the tale is resolved in a surprising and bizarre way.
Each of the characters is observer and observed – subject and object – at the same time, creating a linear and circular quality to the writing.
This picaresque narrative, which is Fanny’s story, adds to the novella’s sensuality, humour and humanity.
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A new play
‘ENTROPY’
Edinburgh International Festival Fringe 2018
Info and tickets:
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on#fq=category%3A%22Theatre%22&fq=venue_name%3A%22Underbelly%22&q=%22Entropy%2
Edinburgh Fringe 2018: Theatre WORLD PREMIER
Jennifer Roslyn Wingate in association with The White Bear Theatre presents
ENTROPY
Entropy: (noun) lack of stability or predictability; gradual decline into disorder
Sam, 19, with a confidence that borders on arrogance, turns up unannounced and unwelcome at Barbara’s door after an absence of many years. Barbara, 36 and living alone, is startled and unsettled as this spectre from the past demands admission.
This fast paced, lyrical drama is liberally laced with black humour. There is an obvious visceral mutual chemistry between Sam and Barbara that can only come from familiarity, but will that chemistry become a positive or poisonous force?
The conversation begins playfully as Sam plays games with (and on) Barbara but these games gradually become more sinister. Their history erupts as family skeletons tumble from the closet in this emotionally charged two-hander. As both characters display conflicting characteristics we are left to wonder what is true, what comes from false memories and what are simply lies?
The tension between the two builds to a crescendo before the finale reveals an unexpected and disturbing twist.
‘A compelling study of the darkest side of human nature that makes for uncomfortable and thought-provoking watching’ Siân Rowland playwright, on an early preview
Barbara is played by Katharine Drury who has previously appeared in plays at Pleasance, Paines Plough Roundabout, Vault Festival and Old Red Lion amongst others with recent LAMDA graduate Lewis Bruniges as Sam.
Written by Jennifer Roslyn Wingate author of Unused Language; The Serpent and Other Stories and Love or Cold Philosophy, a Novella. Directed by Laura Clifford who has also worked with The Bread and Roses Theatre, The White Bear Theatre and Theatre503.
Age guide 14+
Listings information: Entropy
Venue: Underbelly, The Dairy Room, Bristo Sq (Venue 302)
Dates: 1-27 Aug (not 13,)
Time: 19.15 (60 mins)
Press Contacts
Steve Forster @ sfp communications ltd
07939 221192
steve@sfppr.co.uk
Tickets: £10 – £12 (previews 1 – 3 Aug £6.50)
Venue Box Office: 03333 444 167
Online: underbelly.co.uk
Underbelly Press Office:
0844 545 8242
press@underbelly.co.uk
‘Katherine Drury plays Barbara, Lewis Bruniges plays Sam in ENTROPY.
What does it mean to be an autonomous human being? Each of the characters in ‘Entropy’ is damaged by another person whose identity is revealed during the course of the play.
Sam is 19, nervous, excitable and testosterone charged ; he has a grievance against Barbara his stepmother. What does she know about his father’s abuse of him and what responsibility should she be made to take for it?
Through humour, vicious and hilarious games, dancing,, songs he searches for an understanding between them, and seeks to retrieve his childhood.
At each turn of Sam probing questions Barbara i remains in denial until realising she has more in common with Sam than both of them realises.
The play ends dramatically with a final poignant twist.
Theatre Weekly has made Entropy one of its Picks of the Fringe
https://theatreweekly.com/pick-of-the-fringe-2018-theatre-part-2/
With Lewis Bruniges and Katherine Drury
“Entropy…absolutely breath-taking performance from Lewis Bruniges as Sam. He pulls out all the character’s flaws and lays them bare with unflinching honesty. He is in one moment sweet and childlike, then disturbing, terrifying, and violent in ever decreasing circles of pain and angst.” “There’s a fine febrility to Laura Clifford’s direction, helped by two fierce, frantic turns from Katherine Drury and Lewis Bruniges. Bruniges, a recent LAMDA graduate, is particularly good – his whirlwind, borderline psychotic performance as Sam has an enervating, unpredictable edge. You feel as though he could snap at any second.
“ENTROPY”
London premier at the White Bear Theatre.
Available for future Productions
ENTROPY by Jennifer Roslyn Wingate
White Bear Theatre 12th to 16th September 2017
Reviews:
‘a compelling study of the darkest side of human nature’★★★★
I admit having to look up the proper meaning of Entropy before the play. It means a lack of order or a gradual decline into disorder and that is certainly the case with the jagged relationship between the two characters in this play. Happily, though, it doesn’t describe the story itself which ramps up the tension and keeps it there.
Helen Clapp plays a woman living alone but on the edge of her nerves. Something has happened in her past to make her like this and that something comes knocking at the door one night.
Sam (Scott Mackie) may be young and confident but there’s an edginess to him, an aura of danger and he’s come back to find answers and perhaps get his revenge.
The two actors are superb. Clapp exudes the outer calm of a woman used to bottling up her feelings and veers between cajoling mother-figure and assertive schoolmarm. Mackie is a revelation (think Rafe Spall in The Shadow Line) as the damaged and damaging Sam whose present has been sharply defined by his past. One minute sweet and the next horrifically threatening, his performance is nonetheless tightly leashed and more dangerous for it.
At first Sam’s eloquent and lyrical speech seemed at odds with his character but it lends an otherworldly air to the play and ensures he is an equal sparring partner with Clapp.
At just over an hour this play packs quite a punch and there are no clear answers – who is lying and who is telling the truth? Writer Jennifer Wingate doesn’t shy away from allowing us glimpses of the nastier side of Clapp’s character and the more tender sides of Mackie’s.
A quick warning that there is a scene of sexual violence which isn’t to spoil the story but be warned that this might be a trigger for some.
Entropy is a compelling study of the darkest side of human nature that makes for uncomfortable and thought-provoking watching.
ENTROPY by Jennifer Roslyn Wingate
Directed by Laura Clifford
Produced in association with The White Bear Theatre
Reviewer Siân Rowland is a playwright and comedy writer represented by Kitson Press.
ENTROPY, by Jennifer Wingate.
This little play is tense and unforgiving, heavily laden with sexual undertones.
Clearly all is not well in the world which is inhabited by the two protagonists: a precocious eighteen year old, and his equally attractive young stepmother. The sins of the past are revisited in this verbal sparring match, full of dark humour and existential angst and oppression. The text is quick witted, playful and sufficiently vicious to make one curious but uncomfortable.
Mackie, as the young man, is terrific. He has a great sense of timing, an unusual ability to switch emotions and rhythms in body language. ( « to be or not to be » is his question and we never find out the answer). In the meantime he gives as well as he takes. Helen Clapp, who plays Barbara, starts the game with due gentility but rapidly wakes up to the challenge set by the angry stepson, and rapidly removes her gloves to fend off his verbal onslaught.
The two are then caught up in the escalation of tension as various « truths » get revealed. The dialogue is excellent.
NEW
“THE PLAYHOUSE”
A play in two Acts.
Set in late C19 Norway
SYNOPSIS
NORA KIELER HAS BECOME an actress in Magnus Melhus’ theatre in Friedrikstad and the star of a play she has written herself about Queen Elizabeth I whom she admires for her independence. She is an accomplished and liberated woman; also vain, insecure and given to lying – but we love her and wish her well As it starts, it is a week before opening night and the pressures are mounting.
It is six years after the end of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ when she, as Nora Helmer, left her husband and three young children. To her husband it was out of character but we knew she had the courage to act on a sudden impulse: a self-destruct button, or a supreme act of liberation?
Very importantly – this play stands alone as a theatre piece. Familiarity with the Ibsen play is unnecessary to the action of “The Playhouse”.
The producer is Jakob Dahl, a nuanced and pivotal figure of great personal magnetism, a dangerous ‘bear’ who gets what everyone is up to. He’s doing a favour to Magnus Melhus by coming from Paris to Friedrikstad to direct the new play. He’s not the cynic he pretends to be. His compassion and attractive humour influences the play throughout. Renaissance man, cold philosophy: not above a deal of flirting, sometimes reciprocated. He’s a sort of Baron Ochs but with self-knowledge and great talent.
Nora is involved with a young actor Caspar Krogstad who wants to create a Theatre Academy in the town. Other characters hint at her past which she refuses to confront being now a woman with a dearly won autonomy.
Finally, Christine Krogstad engineers a meeting between Nora’s husband Torvald and Nora herself. He has changed; but Nora is adamant. Nevertheless. he persuades her to go back to him and the children. But when the Academy falls through she loses her precious independence and refuses.
Torvald tries again, saying he will build the academy and gives her carte blanche to run it. She finally agrees but overhears a phrase that shows he regards her in the same light as years ago. He has not really changed.
Does she go back to her children and endure again the marriage she escaped from? Or reassert herself and make the best of her freedom?
Ambiguous ending.
Soon to be produced
