International Theatre in Cambridge
It’s not your usual theatre experience. Three plays, three countries, three languages: the Cambridge International Theatre Festival has arrived.
Harriet Phillips (2016) is one of the MML students behind the International Theatre Festival. The festival joins together three individual plays with the aim of celebrating international theatre and bringing something new and exciting to Cambridge theatre. This is the only its first year, and there are big plans for more plays and events in future years. For now there are three plays on offer; a French play, an Italian play, and a Spanish play.
For the audience, it's an opportunity to experience different theatrical cultures and appreciate how the spoken word is only one part of the performance. For the cast there’s an academic benefit to learning lines without the pressure of exams, and exploring language from specific cultural contexts. The Spanish play will feature slang used in 1950s Madrid; not something you usually encounter in academic learning. Whatever your language skills, there’s something for everyone in these plays. Each crew, Harriet says, have gone to great effort to make their performances visually engaging. The Italian play will have captions in English, while the French and Spanish plays will have leaflets detailing key events.
The plays:
The French play: Rêver Peut-Être by Jean Claude Grumberg.
On this week, this Kafkaesque performance depicts the trial of actor Gerard B., accused of inhumanity after killing Polonius in a dream. It’s a “unbelievably French”, and absurdist, but promises to be an enjoyable experience.
Dates: Daily until 10th February
The Italian play: Morte Accidentale di un Anarchico (accidental death of an anarchist)
An anarchist falls from a window during a police interview, and in the midst of the resulting uproar a mysterious maniac appears at the station. The play follows the series of games the man sets for the police, ranging from farcical to deadly serious.
Dates: Daily 15th February – 17th February
The Spanish play: Historia de una Escalera
Each act of this play is set a decade apart, and it becomes clear that, as history repeats itself, people experience the same struggles and make the same mistakes.
Dates: TBC – Follow Cambridge International Theatre Festival on Facebook for updates