Niall Bishop, Tanya Fear and Eva Jane-Willis will star in Tiny Dynamite, by award-winning playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan, at the Old Red Lion Theatre this spring. Returning to London for its first professional revival in 15 years, this play explores how tiny events from our pasts can have explosive effects on our futures.
Tiny Dynamite follows the story of two childhood friends, Luce and Anthony, who both experienced the same traumatic event at an early age. That trauma has impacted them in different ways, and has led them down very different paths in life. But during their annual pilgrimage to the countryside, the pair encounter a beautiful stranger who couldn’t possibly exist, someone who threatens to uncover a truth long since buried.
Morgan described Tiny Dynamite as about ‘knowing when to take responsibility for your life and those moments when you have to just step back and let a miracle happen.’ Pertinently, taking personal responsibility for our actions is making daily headline news, and the play asks whether we can truly shed the experiences, memories and people that ultimately shape who we are – or whether we all, eventually, have to face a personal and collective truth.
The production merges qualities of a love story with those of a ghost tale and psychological thriller, presenting a fierce pressure cooker of memory and trauma which Morgan described as formally being akin to ‘a domino effect’, with the tension constantly building throughout.
Director, David Loumgair comments, With permission from Abi Morgan, and for this revival of the production only, we’ve changed the gender of the character of Luce from male to female. It’s an exciting change that brings an entirely new dynamic to the revival, especially with the oversaturation of male-driven narratives in theatre. It’s brilliant to be working with Time on their inaugural production, and to be directing not only a terrific play, but one with incredibly complex female characters who aren’t defined solely in relationship to men.
Tiny Dynamite is at The Old Red Lion Theatre 9th January – 3rd February 2018.
