Blue Rider Group presents Samuel Beckett and Václav Havel double bill.• The Blue Rider Group www.bluerider-group.com

Blue Rider Group was formed by Lisa Moore and Mark Webb to present Stoppard Shorts at The King’s Head Theatre – “The Dissolution of Dominic Boot” and “If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank” directed by T.P Kael. Private View was first performed by Blue Rider Group as part of the RADA Festival, 2014. For our Beckett and Havel Double Bill we are delighted to be working alongside Clare Bloomer and Gary Tushaw.

• Catastrophe by Samuel Beckett + Private View by Václav Havel

Catastrophe by Samuel Beckett

CATASTROPHE sees a theatre director and his assistant arranging a protagonist, who stands on a square plinth, bare-footed, his head bowed – submitting to their direction. This Havel-like captive, silently wills the audience into an awareness of his predicament…

Private View by Václav Havel
Invited over for drinks by his friends, Ferdinand tries to enthuse over Michael and Vera’s newly refurbished flat. But as the couple express the perfection of their marriage and lifestyle, the tone develops into a personal attack on him, his home, his wife and his work as a writer. As the abuse builds to a climax, he tries to leave…Both plays are dark, tense and in parts cruelly funny.

 

• Beckett and Havel – a very special friendship Godot is here!

 

Catastrophe, was written in 1982, and dedicated to Václav Havel, then a political prisoner in Czechoslovakia, serving a four and a half year sentence for ‘subversive activities’.  
This is the first time these plays have been presented as a double bill.

 

Although Beckett had never met Havel, he was deeply concerned by the persecution of writers and artists in Eastern Europe and was horrified to hear that Havel had been forbidden to write in prison.

 

Beckett’s most famous play, Waiting for Godot, came to symbolise the agony of the Czech opposition – waiting for something that seemed as if it was never going to come. When the communist government fell in 1989, just before Beckett´s death, protesters took to the streets of Prague with posters saying: “Godot is here“. Beckett lived just long enough to learn that his friend´s persistence and defiance had brought him to lead a nation, but just missed Havel’s election as president.

 

• WHERE

 

Address: Drayton Arms Theatre, 153 Old Brompton Road, London SW5 0LJ

Tickets are available through TicketSource www.ticketsource.co.uk/blueridergroup

thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/tickets

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• WHEN

 

Five performances weekly (Tuesday – Saturday) from July 28-August 15, 2015. 8pm

 

• THE COMPANY

 

CLARE BLOOMER (Director) is an actress and trained at RADA. Clare also runs Essential Voice classes and has lead an 8 week Essential Voice Course for non-actors. Clare co-created a seven week acting course “An Actor Prepares” with Studio 8 Ibiza where she often works as a teacher. Clare enjoys working with artists and dancers as well as actors in helping them realise their full performance and communication potential. Clare co-ran theatre company Cassandra and presented the UK Premiere of Crossing by Reza de Wet at the Riverside Studios and over 10 rehearsed readings as part of OLD VIC NEW VOICES programme. As an actress theatres include: Theatre Royal (Bury St Edmunds), Theatre Royal (Windsor), Theatre Royal (West End), Manchester Royal Exchange, Georgian Theatre (Richmond), Alexander Theatre (Birmingham), Kings Head, BAC and The Bridewell. Clare was thrilled to be invited to direct Private View for the RADA Festival 2014 and now for the Drayton Arms Theatre alongside Samuel Beckett´s Catastrophe. Clare is currently working on an adaptation of an Ibsen play.

 

MAY MOORE trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, New York, NY. Theatre: The Bald Soprano – (Rita Wallach Morgenthau Theatre NY), Bed and Breakfast – (Rita Wallach Morgenthau Theatre NY), Electra (NY Public Library), Blithe Spirit (Bristol Riverside), The Lesson (Jean Cocteau Theatre NY), If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank and The Dissolution of Dominic Boot (King’s Head), The Chance (Edinburgh Playhouse) Torch Song Trilogy (Edinburgh C Venues). Film: In A Day (Goldcrest Films), Mr & Mrs Myth, The Man in the Woods, 11 Dimensions (Franco Films). TV: The Bobby Flay Show (Food Network, NYC). . Radio: The Elizabethan Beauty Law (R4)

 

GARY TUSHAW trained at RADA. West End Theatre includes: Sweeney Todd (Coliseum/English National Opera), Christopher Wren in The Mousetrap (St Martins Theatre), Marius in Les Miserables (Queens Theatre), Romeo/Ensemble in Romeo and Juliet (Piccadilly).

Other Theatre includes: Thérèse Raquin (The Park Theatre and The Finborough), The Liberation of Colette Simple (Jackson’s Lane) The Hired Man (Leicester Curve Theatre), Return of the Solider (Landor Theatre), Bonnie and Clyde (Kings Head Theatre), Billy Chickens is a Psychopath Superstar (Theatre 503 at the Latitude Festival), Hacked (Theatre 503), Bel Ami (White Bear), A Christmas Carol (Southwark Playhouse), Our Miss Gibbs (Finborough), The Melancholy Hussar (Kings Head), The Beggars Opera and Taming of the Shrew (Changeling Theatre Company), The Tempest (New Wolsey), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Pomegranate), As You like It and Hamlet (National Tour), Fumed Oak and Red Peppers, The Importance of Being Earnest (REL/Cunard Productions), The Devil’s Disciple(RADA Festival).

Opera: Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires)

Gary also devises and performs programmes of song and poetry (RADA, National Portrait Gallery and for Cherub Theatre Company).

 

MARK WEBB trained at RADA. Theatre: The Dissolution of Dominic Boot (Kings Head), Dealers Choice (Union), Not Quite It (Soho), Soul Reader (Etcetera), Twelfth Night (Royal George).

Television: Wallander, Midsomer Murders, Silent Witness, New Tricks, The Bill, Judge John Deed, Extreme Body, Without Motive 2, Casualty, Daylight Robbery, Poirot, Headless, McCallum, Beech is Back, The Glass, Kavanagh QC, Touching Evil, Invasion Earth, The Fragile Heart, Absolutely True, Anna Lee.

Film: Colour Me Kubrick, Mumbo Jumbo, Hit and Myth, The Trick, Magic Hour, 11 Dimensions, Loop, The Black Cat.

Radio: The Smart Couple (R4), Up Against it (R3), Shadowlands (R4).

 

“Keep the company of those who seek the truth – run from those who have found it”― Václav Havel