>September Events / Art & Theatre / Events in Norfolk and Suffolk / Tourist Attractions Norfolk and Suffolk September 3, 2020
ANNOUNCING: Contemporary Love Monologues
We are now pleased to announce the second production in the project, titled Contemporary Love Monologues, which premieres on 25th and 26th September 2020.
Contemporary Love Monologues is a digital theatre production co-created with the public and based in Norwich but with a global reach.
After an overwhelming response to our open call, twelve women were chosen to devise monologues based on personal stories through a series of creative writing sessions on Zoom, with writer Belona Greenwood, Artistic Director of concentric circles, Adina Levay.
The production seeks to create a cross-cultural and cross-generational chorus of women, whoever defines themselves as such. From being a young widow to becoming invisible with ageing and falling in love with another women, these stories challenge generalisations about women and reveal the complex reality of our beating hearts.
The monologues will be performed by the women who wrote them and by members of the professional cast of Illusions, which includes Eva Magyar (Knee High, The National Theatre, RSC), Mogali Masuku (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Mariah Louca (The Doctor, Almeida Theatre).
The production will premiere online, on 25 and 26th September via YouTube.
Follow us on Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube
Women telling women’s stories
Concentric circles is delighted to present Contemporary Love Monologues – the
second production in the Can We Talk About Love project 2020. Following the online
production of Illusions, which premiered in August 2020, Contemporary Love
Monologues is a co-created, participatory theatre production – the result of an open
call for women to tell their personal stories about love and gender.
After an overwhelming response from the open call, twelve women were chosen to
devise monologues through a series of creative writing workshops with activist and
writer Belona Greenwood, Artistic Director of concentric circles’, Adina Levay, and
Assistant Director Kate Cox.
The production seeks to create a chorus of women, whoever defines themselves as
such, cross-cultural and cross-generational. From young widowhood to the invisibility
of aging and queer identities, these stories challenge generalisations about women
and reveal the complex reality of our beating hearts.
They will be performed by professional and non-professional actors, recorded and
then aired over two nights on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th September 2020.
The production will be directed by concentric circles’ artistic director Adina Levay and
assisted by Kate Cox – a graduate from the MA Theatre Directing at University Of East Anglia.
About Can We Talk About Love
Perceptions of love and gender
Can We Talk About Love is an all-female, two-part digital theatre project exploring perceptions of romantic love and gender, at a distance via Zoom, amidst a global pandemic. It is supported by Arts Council England and Norfolk County Council.
In partnership with Proscenium, an independent Hungarian theatre company based in Slovakia, the project explores the ways in which women experience love. The subjective nature of love here is also bound up in perceptions of gender. What does it mean to be a woman today? How do we define our gender identity? How do we perform it?
Against the backdrop of a global pandemic that knows no borders, Can We Talk About Love seeks to create a community of theatre practitioners and audiences, regardless of physical distance and open to all.
The all-female project culminates in two productions presented online. The first is a
contemporary European text – Illusions by Ivan Viripaev – and Contemporary Love Monologues, an original text co-authored by the public.
About Illusions
Illusions by Russia’s foremost contemporary playwright, Ivan Viripaev, is a post-dramatic text that centres around four characters. Their entwined lives are narrated by an ensemble of actors who construct and reconstruct theatrical illusions of individual narratives. The production has been translated in several languages and presented across Europe and in the US.
Illusions is a dark comedy about two married couples. A little story about love and death and our great desire to make up stories that give meaning to our lives.
To subvert traditional roles, our online production was performed by an ensemble of five female actors based in six European cities. The production was devised, rehearsed and recorded over a five week period on Zoom and premiered on 1st August, followed by a Q&A with the creative team and the public.
Featured in the Guardian’s round-up of the hottest online dance and theatre, that week, Illusions demonstrates the potential of online theatre from afar.
The production was directed by concentric circles’ Artistic Director, Adina Levay with Lorna Hale from MA Theatre Directing, UEA, as assistant director. Design was by Erika Gadus from Budapest, who works internationally in both film and theatre and the original musical score was by Hungarian composer and singer Klaudia Gardeno.
The performance is in English and Hungarian with subtitles.
English translation by Cazimir Liske, Hungarian translation by András Kozma. concentric circles was granted licence to present Ivan Viripaev’s Illusions by Rosica Colin Ltd, London, in conjunction with Henschel SCHAUSPIEL Theaterverlag Berlin GmbH.
About Adina Levay
Adina Levay is a theatre director and the Producing Artistic Director of concentric circles theatre company in Norwich. Born in Romania, Adina trained as an actor at the Hangar School of Performing Arts in Budapest and as a theatre director at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she graduated with an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice. Currently she is on an MA Course in Creative Entrepreneurship at the University of East Anglia. Previously Adina was the Artistic Director of the Jókai Theatre in Slovakia and worked as Associate Director at the New Theatre in Budapest and the Miskolci National Theatre in Hungary.
