Reformation is funny, gripping and challenging new play inspired by the life and art of the Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach.
“…one look in her eyes tells us how she has been wronged…”
Berlin. Eva learns that the celebrity artist Cranach is visiting her city. A chance meeting in the market place leads to romance with the artist’s son. Eva gets the chance to model for Cranach’s latest painting, ‘The Rape of Lucrece’. When Joachim, the all-powerful Elector of Brandenburg, sees the sketches of Eva, he wants the model. Is Cranach willing to sell the human his son loves? In an age where upsetting the powerful meant obscurity or death, what’s a poor girl like Eva to do?
Reformation is a play about those who don’t make the history books. It tells the story of a young woman who finds herself in a world where the desires of the powerful have priority. This premier production, in contemporary dress, suggests many striking contemporary resonances between Eva’s situation and #metoo.
James Martin Charlton is an award-winning playwright. His previous plays include the critically acclaimed Fat Souls and Coming Up (Warehouse, Croydon), the sell-out hit I Really Must be Getting Off (White Bear), and Coward (Just Some Theatre Co.).
Janice Dunn is an experienced theatre director, who has worked extensively in the UK and Europe throughout her career. She is the former Artistic Director of the Mercury. Colchester, where she directed the premier of Howard Barker’s The Europeans.
Reformation is at The White Bear Theatre 25th June to 13th July 2019.
