Two new plays “exploring questions of responsibility and endeavour in our society” are featured in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place Spring Mischief Festival in Stratford.
Tom Morton-Smith’s one-act play The Earthworks is set on the eve of the activation of the Large Hadron Collider. Two strangers—a journalist and a scientist—share their experiences of loss, hope and the universal emotion of grief. RSC deputy artistic director Erica Whyman directs, with design by Rosanna Vize.
Morton-Smith’s last commission for the RSC was Oppenheimer, about the theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, which played at London’s Vaudeville Theatre in 2015.
Matt Hartley and Kirsty Housley’s Myth takes place on a wine-fuelled evening, with two couples debating their materialistic lifestyle. As their dinner party descends into chaos, their friendship and their lives are irreparably changed. Myth is directed by Kirsty Housley and designed by Rosanna Vize.
The two plays have a shared cast including Fehinti Balogun, Rebecca Humphries, Lena Kaur and Thomas Magnussen.
There will also be two research-and-development works-in-progress: Busking It, a one-woman show written and performed by Danusia Samal, and #WeAreArrested by journalist Can Dündar, as well as post-show discussions and director talks.
The Spring Mischief Festival will be staged in The Other Place from Wednesday 24 May until Saturday 17 June. The full programme is available at the RSC web site.