Trap Street & Dinomania: Two Plays by Kandinsky (paperback)

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Trap Street
‘Trap Street is an 80-minute show that melds an astonishing complexity of themes, a mastery of form and a deep, deep humanity … another triumph for Kandinsky’  ★★★★ Time Out

This show premiered at New Diorama Theatre, running from 6 to 31 March 2018. It also ran at the Schaubühne, Berlin from 5 to 7 April 2019 as part of the Festival of International New Drama (FIND) where The New York Times described it as:

‘not only the highlight of the festival but one of the most ingenious pieces of new theater I have seen recently… The three-person cast deftly shifts between time periods in a mesmerizing single act that combines minimal stagecraft, improvised music and finely chiseled performances to create an anguished cry of moral outrage about neoliberal economic policies, gentrification and the erosion of the social security system.’

It’s 1961 and the concrete’s just been poured for a brand new housing estate. It’s beautiful, not because of the clean lines, indoor toilets and wide windows, but because the idea behind it is beautiful. This is the future, and it’s for everyone.

It’s 2018 and the last tower of the estate is about to come down. The dream that saw it built has long since died and now the estate has to follow suit to make way for new buildings, based on new ideas. This is the future, whether you like it or not.

Kandinsky brings the company’s trademark theatrical inventiveness to city life, exploring a community trying to find its way in a landscape shaped by power. Trap Street charts 50 years of changing attitudes to ownership and space in London, to ask what home means in 2018.

 

Reviews
‘Timely critique about the housing crisis is both angry and humane.’ ★★★★ Evening Standard

‘Compelling and intelligent’ ★★★★ The Stage

‘Ferociously intelligent, poignant … Trap Street effectively maps the process of British dreaming, and how that process is permanently written into the landscape itself.’ Exeunt


Dinomania
‘Wildly inventive theatre company Kandinsky return with a head-spinningly smart show about Victorian fossil hunters…No-one else makes theatre quite like this.’ ★★★★★ Time Out

Dinomania was originally commissioned by New Diorama Theatre, running from 19 February to 23 March 2019.

165 million years ago, an iguanodon is killed in the heart of a rainforest. Time passes, the rainforest becomes the South Downs, and every part of the iguanodon degrades and disappears – except one tooth.

197 years ago, in safe, affluent 1820s Sussex, a country doctor finds the tooth. But where does it fit in the story of an earth created by God just 6,000 years ago?


Reviews
★★★★ Evening Standard

‘Consistently smart and inventive’ ★★★★ The Stage

‘Brilliant comic timing… I have rarely seen such an electric cast.’ ★★★★ A Younger Theatre

‘This is such intelligent work from a seriously talented company.’ Lyn Gardner for Stagedoor

‘Sharply funny and exciting throughout’ The TLS

‘For Kandinsky, this is yet another nuanced, reflective, and highly creative approach to theatre-making. Original and perceptive, this is storytelling at its best.’ Exeunt

Additional information

Format

paperback
Dimensions

198 x 129 mm
Extent

TBC
ISBN

9781913630102
Publication date

August 2020

About the writer

Kandinsky is James Yeatman, Al Smith and Lauren Mooney.

James Yeatman co-founded Kandinsky while at Edinburgh University. For Kandinsky: There Is A Light That Never Goes Out: Scenes From the Luddite Rebellion (Director/Writer), Dinomania (Director/Writer), Trap Street (Director/Writer), Still Ill (Director/Writer), Dog Show (Director), Limehouse Nights (Director/Writer), Enola (Performer/Director), Radio (Director), On Wonderland (Director), The Bird (Director/Performer) and The Bee (Performer). Other work includes: Persuasion – Royal Exchange (Dramaturg/Co-adaptor with Jeff James), The Kid Stays In The Picture – Royal Court (Co-adaptor and Co-director with Simon McBurney), Beware of Pity – Schaubühne (Co-adaptor and Co-director with Simon McBurney), Lionboy by Marcelo Dos Santos for Complicite – Tricycle and International Tour (Co-Director with Clive Mendus), Chimerica by Lucy Kirkwood – Harold Pinter Theatre (Associate Director) and The Master and Margarita by Complicite from Bulgakov – Barbican & International Tour (Associate Director).

Al Smith co-founded Kandinsky while at Edinburgh University. For Kandinsky he has written Enola, Radio and The Bird, and co-written Dog Show and Still Ill. Other writing includes: The Astronaut Wives Club (Soho), Sport (Headlong), Harrogate (HighTide/Royal Court) and The Diary of a Madman (Traverse/Gate). He writes extensively for radio and television, and was the winner of the inaugural Wellcome Trust BFI / Film4 Screenwriting Prize. He is currently under commission at the Royal Court Theatre and the Traverse Theatre.

Lauren Mooney is a writer, producer and dramaturg. She joined Kandinsky in 2015. Work with the company includes Dog Show (as Producer/Dramaturg), Still Ill, Trap Street, Dinomania (all as Producer/Co-writer) and There is a Light that Never Goes Out (Co-creator/Dramaturg). She is a graduate of the Royal Court Playwriting course, has written about arts and culture for Exeunt, The Stage and The Guardian, and worked for two years in the literary team at Clean Break Theatre Company, where she co-edited their monologue collection Rebel Voices (Methuen, 2019). She is currently the David Higham Scholar on the Creative Writing MA at University of East Anglia.

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