UPPER SCHOOL HOUSE DRAMA
Kathryn Norton-Smith reflects on a fantastic night of theatre
I t was great to see so many involved in Upper School House Drama, including many students perform- ing for the first time. The theme of political theatre afforded the packed house the opportunity to engage with diverse and challenging playmaking, from the pro- vocative and profane to contemporary acerbic satire. Grateful thanks to our adjudicator, actor Shubham Saraf, who had the unenviable task of awarding the cups and prizes, and to our Practitioner-in-Residence, Eddie Loodmer-Elliott, for curating the evening’s selec- tion of pieces for presentation. Augusto Boal’s assertion that all theatre is necessarily political because all human acts are political, speaks to the importance of live theatre as a means of reflecting the world in which we live. In Upper School House Drama this year, the politics of power, human relationships and the question of who has a voice were laid bare through satire, realism and expressionistic plays including Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Mike Bartlett’s The 47th, Lucy Kirkwood’s NSFW, Tom Basden’s Party , Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance and Richard Curtis’s iconic Blackadder Goes Forth . Shubham’s extensive film and TV credits, which include the Netflix series A Suitable Boy , Jed Mercurio’s Body- guard and the new Apple TV+ production of Shantaram , as well as his recent performance at the National Theatre in the much-lauded production The Father and the Assassin , ensured brilliant adjudication with plenty of advice for our budding actors, director and writers. Showcasing selfless ensemble playing, Marlowe’s extract from Tom Basden’s Party scooped the top spot. Its bickering, back-biting and overt politeness, deftly played
by the quartet of Harry Sugden (Year 13), Nat Rowney (Year 13), Rufus Angel (Year 12) and Will Bradley (Year 12), demonstrated just how annoying democracy can be, whilst packing in plenty of laughs. Jonson’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (one of the great plays of the 20th cen- tury, in which Brecht crafts a parallel between the career
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THE ALLEYNIAN 712
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