Acclaimed theatre-makers Kandinsky, whose combination of extensive research and distinctive theatricality is developing them an exciting reputation as a company to watch, will return to New Diorama next month for the world premiere of their brand new show Trap Street.
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.
A ‘trap street’ is a street on a map that doesn’t really exist, put in by map-makers to expose anyone plagiarising their work. Trap Street is set in a building similarly stuck between existence and non-existence: a high-rise tower, the last of the huge mid-20th century estate, sat waiting to be demolished. Andrea grew up here, though after she bought her flat in the late eighties she’s barely been back – but now they’re knocking it all down, part of London’s ever-changing face, and she’s come to reclaim what’s hers. Trap Street charts 50 years of changing attitudes to social housing and space in London, to ask what home means in 2018.
The show is directed and co-written by James Yeatman (also an associate director for legendary theatre company Complicité), and devised by the company, based on original material by Yeatman and co-writer Lauren Mooney. It’s been made in conjunction with representatives of several London housing associations and charities, and with long-term social housing tenants from the Nightingale Estate in Hackney and Thamesmead in southeast London.
The company includes acclaimed performers Amelda Brown (Blue Heart, Orange Tree; Adler and Gibb, Royal Court) and Danusia Samal (B, Royal Court; Two Noble Kinsmen, RSC), as well as live music from Zac Gvirtzman.
Kandinsky’s previous productions include Still Ill – a drama developed with doctors and patients, examining the surprisingly common, little-understood Functional Neurological Disorder – and Dog Show, a tragicomic look at people and their pets through the lens of a community gripped in terror by a serial dog murderer.
Trap Street is at New Diorama Theatre 6th – 31st March 2018.
