Harmony, a brand new play written by Jewish playwright Sam Thorpe-Spink makes its debut at The White Bear Theatre on Thursday 20 May.
Harmony, which Sam describes as “an existential romcom with whales” is, he says, like a combination of Notting Hill and Black Mirror.
The play, which is Sam’s first, is a futuristic piece set in 2035. As waves gently lap against the ground-floor windows of a block of flats, on the ninth floor a couple are arguing. But advice is at hand, thanks to a machine-learning, relationship therapy, bot who intervenes in the couple’s argument and attempts to save their relationship.
As Artificial Intelligence increases its hold on life, in an uncertain future with rising sea levels and scorching temperatures, the play questions whether the unstoppable advance of technology will save humanity or if it will altogether remove humanity from the equation.
Actor writer Sam comes from a family that has been immersed in theatre for generations. His brother, mother and grandfather are actors, and his grandmother Gillian Freeman is the author of the highly acclaimed book The Leather Boys. Harmony is the first play of The Grub Street Theatre Company set up by Sam and named after the original street name of Guildhall Drama School. He is also co-artistic director of theatre company Emanate and since leaving drama school four years has had roles in film, theatre and television.
Australian born Jewish theatre creative Claudia Shnier makes her stage debut this week at Brighton Fringe with her play Split Ends.
This autobiographical performance is about experiencing Obsessive Compulsive disorder (OCD) and psychological abuse. For Claudio her OCD manifests itself in her hair and, in particular, the split ends.
“The thing about split ends is that as soon as you cut one off, somewhere else on the head, another strand of hair will split. Cut, split, cut split, ad infinitum.
“I would obsess over my hair. And then I met a man and became obsessed with his hair as well. It seemed to always be shedding and even after the relationship ended I would still keep finding stray hairs.”
Claudia, who has just completed her masters degree at RADA, decided to write Split Ends in response to her experiences.
“The play is an exploration of control, love and the addiction to people who hurt us,” she says. “Split Ends uses a combination of stand-up comedy, puppetry and multi-media to attempt to understand when we are meticulously in control or incredibly out of it.”
A 60-minute long, one woman show, Claudia says it has been tremendously cathartic writing and performing in Split Ends.
Harmony is at the White Bear Theatre 20 -31 May. whitebeartheatre.co.uk
Split Ends is at Brighton Fringe 24 – 26 May. brightonfringe.org
