The El. Train | Three One Act Plays by Eugene O’Neill, Hoxton Hall 6-31 December 2013Found Ltd. in association with Just Opened London and 31Productions Three one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill (Before Breakfast, The Web and The Dreamy Kid). The plays, written between 1913 and 1918, were presented together for the first time. Combining live music with totally immersive design, all housed in the intimate setting of Grade II listed Hoxton Hall, for a sold out month, the production starred two-time Oliver Award and Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson and Nicola Hughes.
Design by Nick Hayes 5***** Observer | 4**** Guardian | 4**** Daily Telegraph | 4**** The Times | 4**** The Independent | 4**** Time Out London | 4**** West End Review | More press here
Production photographer Marc Brenner Cast: Simon Coombs, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Christian Edwards, Nicola Hughes, Adam Sopp, Ony Uihara, Zubin Varla and Ruth Wilson Writer Eugene O’Neill Sound Designers Alex Baranowski & Andy Hedges Production Manager Anna Anderson Reviews5***** THE OBSERVER | Kate Kellaway “From the moment you step into Hoxton Hall, your spirits rise and you are reminded of how theatre can lighten a mood. Why confine drama to the stage?… Sam Yates proves himself a director of unusual flair with a pitch-perfect sense of O’Neill’s prose and of theatrical sound: the thunder of train and storm.” 4**** THE GUARDIAN | Michael Billington “Ruth Wilson and Sam Yates have joined forces to direct, in a former Victorian music hall, three early Eugene O’Neill plays written between 1913 and 1918. The result is a spellbinding 90-minute evening… It all makes for an extraordinary occasion, from which one emerges feeling that the rawness of the writing is outweighed by O’Neill’s Hardyesque concern with mankind’s endless struggle against a merciless destiny.” 4**** THE DAILY TELEGRAPH | Jane Shilling “Remarkable…The staging is bleakly beautiful, the original score by Alex Baranowski sensational, the performances brutally truthful.” 4**** THE TIMES | Sam Marlowe (Critics’ Choice) “In these tales of desperation, every moment pulses with life. Intoxicating and savagely compelling.” 4**** THE INDEPENDENT | Holly Williams “Three short one-acts plays by Eugene O’Neill are brought together in a snazzily tricked out old music hall in east London, given a speakeasy vibe complete with smokin’ live jazz and a cocktail bar dubbed the Hell Hole after O’Neill’s favourite haunt.” 4**** THE WEEK “Critics are praising a trio of short dramas by Eugene O’Neill, The El Train at Hoxton Hall, as “spellbinding” and “savagely compelling”. The three one-act plays (The Web, Before Breakfast and The Dreamy Kid) feature performances and direction by Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Lone Ranger).” 4**** TIME OUT | Andrzej Lukowski (Critics’ Choice) “This trio of his early shorts bite painfully deep in the age of Atos, austerity and the bedroom tax.” THE AMERICAN | Jarlath O’Connell “All three are mini masterpieces in dramatic tension and like a perfect short story they make you long for more.” THE DAILY MAIL | Baz Bamigboye “Ruth Wilson is superb in a pair of one-act Eugene O’Neill plays at the Hoxton Hall in East London. Wilson directs a third O’Neill short, which completes The El Train line-up, and there’s great jazz — and a marvellous bar.” THE EVENING STANDARD | Louise Jury “Ruth Wilson has admitted that going to the theatre in the West End leaves her cold, but that she is having a ball making her directing debut in a rather shabby hall in east London.” THE GUARDIAN | Andrew Dickson “Ruth Wilson and her co-director, Sam Yates, are even building a pop-up saloon modelled on the one the playwright notoriously frequented… “I knew I wanted to direct,” she says, “but didn’t know what or when.” Then she got talking to Yates, “and he said, ‘I’ve found these amazing O’Neill shorts, you should come and read some.’ I’ve been in love with O’Neill ever since doing Anna Christie, so I did.” Soon, the pair were auditioning actors, then plunged straight into rehearsals.” THE GUARDIAN | Matt Trueman “Ruth Wilson will star in The Web and Before Breakfast, both of which O’Neill wrote in his 20s, and make her directing debut with The Dreamy Kid. Both shows will be directed by Sam Yates, who has impressed critics with a string of dusted-down classics at the Finborough theatre, including Cornelius and Mixed Marriage. “I’m thrilled to be presenting three of Eugene O’Neill’s lesser-known, one-act plays at London’s historic Hoxton Hall,” he said. “Written when O’Neill was in his 20s, these sometimes violent, passionate works show the undeniable genius of one of America’s greatest dramatists.” THE DAILY MAIL | Baz Bamigboye “Ruth will star in two short plays by Eugene O’Neill, and direct a third — marking her theatrical directorial debut — at Hoxton Hall, East London, in December.” WHAT’S ON STAGE | Theo Bosanquet “The plays – The Web, Before Breakfast and The Dreamy Kid – were written between 1913 and 1918 and are being presented together for the first time. Wilson will act in The Web and Before Breakfast, directed by Sam Yates, and will make her directorial debut with The Dreamy Kid.” |
