May 31, 2011
It is a stroke of genius to perform Book Ends in a book shop - the only downside being that there is only room for about forty people in the audience: if you want to see it (last performance today, Thursday!) get there in good time (by 7.45pm). Book Ends is a love story lived through books, in some ways reminiscent of Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, but wackier, and immediate - and very touching.
There are just two actors. He, the son of a pest control officer, browses the bookshop in which she, a beautiful young woman with a penchant for eating paper, is the assistant? the shopkeeper? the keeper? No! The 'attendant' is the right word. They are both haunted by the engimatic novelist, A.B. Kaufmann, author (or according to one piece of academic research, authoress) of The Book.
And we are drawn into layers of story which are absolutely gripping. We find ourselves inside the bookshop with them, but also inside their heads. Tickets come with a half price glass of wine at Botega across the road. Go if you can. A further play by the same writer, David J. O'Hara, The Upstairs Room, is on at the Burton Taylor theatre in July - "a tale of hope and a riposte to Sartre's Huis Clos". We'll be there!
There are just two actors. He, the son of a pest control officer, browses the bookshop in which she, a beautiful young woman with a penchant for eating paper, is the assistant? the shopkeeper? the keeper? No! The 'attendant' is the right word. They are both haunted by the engimatic novelist, A.B. Kaufmann, author (or according to one piece of academic research, authoress) of The Book.
And we are drawn into layers of story which are absolutely gripping. We find ourselves inside the bookshop with them, but also inside their heads. Tickets come with a half price glass of wine at Botega across the road. Go if you can. A further play by the same writer, David J. O'Hara, The Upstairs Room, is on at the Burton Taylor theatre in July - "a tale of hope and a riposte to Sartre's Huis Clos". We'll be there!