Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (NHB Modern Plays)

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The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette are about to find out. Jenna Coleman and Aidan Turner add glamour and heft to Sam Steiner’s cultish 2015 fringe hit about language, that’s now vaulted into the West End." The political element(s) in this play reminded me of a book I read recently : A Man'A Man' by Keiichirō Hirano . Both writers worked the political bits into their work in different ways; and I think I appreciate Hirano's method/style much more. I was able to sympathise with Hirano's character more. 'Oliver' in Steiner's play was just a very predictable character. When I think about Bernadette being in a relationship with him, I think of the term, 'consensual violence'. But in this case 'consensual idiocy' is more fitting/accurate. But then it makes me think : isn't contemporary 'love' too much/often 'consensual idiocy' anyway? This special edition of Sam Steiner's hilarious and provocative play – featuring a revised text, plus an introduction by the author – was published alongside a major revival in 2023 performed at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End, as well as at Manchester Opera House and Theatre Royal Brighton. It was directed by Josie Rourke and starred Jenna Coleman and Aidan Turner. En un tiempo que parece ser contemporáneo y en una locación no especificada, Bernadette conoce a Oliver. Girl-meets-boy / boy-meets-girl. La obra está construida a partir de piezas temporales intercaladas que van desarrollando un hilo donde se revelan momentos del pasado que explican el presente de la pareja y la sociedad. Luego de que el gobierno aprueba una ley que limita el discurso a --literalmente-- 140 palabras, las relación de la pareja entra en una serie de discusiones y reconciliaciones. Es una propuesta muy interesante sobre la censura y las relaciones afectivas a partir de la hipérbole (curiosamente la limitación de 600 tuits de esta semana me hizo recordar que nunca escribí esta reseña)

But, whatever you choose to read into it, Lemons only works if you buy the chemistry between its two characters – and Coleman and Turner are a powerfully charismatic double act. Her Bernadette is whip-smart but defensive, using a chipper brightness to mask resentments. Turner creates an effective contrast with his looser, brashly charming but sometimes childish Oliver, who negs her when he’s feeling insecure. Sometimes their jagged pieces fit perfectly together; sometimes they just wound each other. Sam Steiner said: "Writing ‘Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons’ taught me how to be a playwright. The opportunity to revisit and grow the play all these years later and bring it to a larger audience with Josie, Aidan, Jenna and an alarmingly inspiring creative team is thrilling and confounding in equal measure. I hope it speaks to now in a way that I couldn’t have predicted then. And I hope to keep learning." Jenna Coleman will star in The Lemons play. She recently appeared in All My Sons at the Old Vic, and is known for The Serpent and Doctor Who on BBC. The Poldark actor Aidan Turner will also take part, returning to the West End after The Lieutenant of Inishmore.Ten year old Lemonade Liberty Witt believes her mom about making lemonade when life gets difficult. However, Lemon faces circumstances that test her lemonade-making abilities. After the death of her mother, she is sent to live in another town with a grandfather she’s never met. Her life gets better when she makes a new friend, Tobin Sky, who is CEO of Bigfoot Detectives, Inc. Yes, there have been suspected Bigfoot sightings in this wooded Northern California community! Lemon becomes Tobin’s assistant, but they discover something more important than Bigfoot. My Thoughts: Lovers Oliver and Bernadette find themselves living under the rules of legislation that requires them to speak no more than 140 words a day. Lemons is a magnetic and moving look into the importance of what we say, how we say things and what happens when we can’t say anything at all.

When we talk to one another, what are we really trying to say? The slipperiness and complexity of language gets a rigorous workout in Sam Steiner’s 2015 play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, an Edinburgh Fringe hit-turned-buzzy new West End production, featuring the starry casting of Jenna Coleman ( Doctor Who) and Aidan Turner ( Poldark). They play a couple grappling with a dystopian new law, the Quietude Act, which commands that no one speak more than 140 words a day. Coleman and Turner are “both brilliant at making complex things clear and moving” said Rourke. Steiner praised the pair for combining “magnetic charisma with a real humanity and nuance”. Coleman played the Doctor’s companion Clara in Doctor Who and starred in both The Serpent and The Sandman on television; she appeared on stage in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the Old Vic in 2019. Turner, best known for playing the title role of the BBC’s Poldark, starred earlier this year as a psychologist in ITV’s The Suspect; he appeared in a 2018 West End production of Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore. It has since been performed at Latitude Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Camden People's Theatre. His other works for theatre include You Stupid Darkness! (Paines Plough and Theatre Royal Plymouth), Kanye the First (HighTide) and A Table Tennis Play (Walrus Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe).The play's about a relationship amidst a political and social chaos/crises. There's a bill being passed - that restricts one's 'voice'/usage of words to 140 a day. The couple argues on and off - about everything - but they never have enough words to express themselves. I personally think that their actions 'expressed' enough what they couldn't express through words. The Lemons play explores the importance of our words, and how what we choose to say can have great meaning. Press material states “You’re going to speak more than 123 million words in your lifetime. What will you do when they run out?" The two-hander play premiered in 2015.

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons is a tender and funny rom-com about what we say, how we say it, and what happens when we can't say anything any more. In fact, in this oh-so-talkative play, it’s the physicality which is most striking (superb work from movement director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster), along with moments when the duo break into song. It’s a compelling argument for art as a means of expression – for when words just aren’t enough.Alongside Josie Rourke on the creative team are designer Robert Jones, lighting designer Aideen Malone, movement by Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster and costume designer by Kinnetia Isidore. The play will also run at Manchester Opera House (21-25 March) and Theatre Royal Brighton (28 March-1 April). In a theatre exclusive for Manchester, it has been announced that the show will head from the West End to just two other venues named so far - at Manchester Opera House and then on to the Theatre Royal Brighton. It will play for an initial limited run at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End from 18 January - 18 March, 2023 before heading to Manchester. And yet, time has been extremely kind to it in other ways. Recent events make many of its ideas feel not just interesting in the abstract, but alarmingly urgent. The government in the world of the play is intent on silencing protestors and censoring free speech, while making an exception from the hush law for Parliament – one rule for us and one for them. Sensing Others through Dancing Bodies as Data: Review of Sense Datum by UBIN DANCE 26th November 2023