Open Studios at Six The Green
Earlier this year the house hosted a production of the play, Price On Application (by Lisa Harmer-Pope) and it will now be holding open studio days for the fourth year running. Artists on show are: Benjamin Phillips, ceramicist and illustrator; Bruce Williams, figurative and expressionist painter; Molly Anne Barrett, who makes luminescent, organic abstracts and new work experimenting with mixed media and scale; John Hunt whose new paintings reflect and interpret the natural landscape; Beccy McCray with a site-specific installation following on from 2016’s provocative ‘Home’; Agata Read, who creates photographic work and prints of Sussex; David Reeve whose oil paintings and collage are inspired by Hastings beaches and the Dungeness wild landscapes; Atul Vohora who completes joyful paintings in oils.

Egypt-inspired Art at Zoom 
Suzanne Kelly is a member of Zoom Arts who lives in St Leonards and will be part of Zoom’s ongoing group show open as part of Coastal Currents. She has a Masters of Fine Art from Edinburgh College of Art, and has always been interested in Egyptology. Suzanne said: “The timeless quality of Egyptian art has always impressed me, and in particular I have been working on a series based on their goddess of creation, destruction and beer: Sekhmet, who has the body of a woman and the head of a lioness.”

Suzanne’s work is based on her sketches, photography and silkscreen prints of images of this goddess, which she has updated with bold colours and floral collage. She will be exhibiting paintings as well as cushions, greeting cards, and ceramic coffee cups. 

• The show will run from Saturday 31st August through Sunday 8th August from 10am to 6pm daily.

Her work can also be seen in St Leonards’ restaurant Oscars on the waterfront and in her Etsy Shop www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SekhmetShop.

The Storm will pass. The spring will come
Susan Elliott’s beautiful mosaics will be on show at Caroline Morris Art and Millinery, 59 Kings Road TN37 6HY (By Warrior Square Station Car Park Entrance). Susan uses recycled kitchen crockery and tourist mementos creating multi-faceted, jewel-like images of popular culture often with a narrative of national identity, she expresses a sympathetic and fond deconstruction of British clichés. Because of the nature of the materials used, the viewing experience is one of discovery and recognition, as Susan describes, “It is like inspecting someone’s mantelpiece or going through their drawers.”

• Open Thursday Friday Saturday 11am-4pm and Sundays 11am-4pm in September with Coastal Currents. Until 15th September.

“Family” show at the Dirty Old Gallery 
DOG say: “Unfortunately due to family problems – we have had to reschedule the opening day and private view to the ‘Family’ show which will now be on Friday 6th September 6pm. This will be our first group show and it will be a right mixed bag with Megan’s odd sculptures, Adam Dando’s paintings of personal wonder along side the drones and audiovisuals of Joe Fawcett – its going to be a strange night but we would love you all to come down and say hi, plus it will be a great kick off for Coastal Currents. 

• The gallery will be open Saturday/Sunday 12-5ish during September.”

• More of Megan’s work is currently on show at the Crown pub on All Saints Street! 

Introducing the Bexhill Butterfly
The Bexhill Butterfly by Belgian street artist Cedric will feature in The W.Ave Arts Festival to be held on the 8th of September between 11am and 5pm, as part of Coastal Currents. It will take place in the access road from Wickham Avenue to Egerton Road (between Cornwall Road and Park Road).

Directed here by Leigh Shine, to be performed at the Stables Theatre

Now, the word “farce” doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Apart from having long roots, possibly tracing back to late medieval religious theatre, it’s not about things going wrong. It’s about overexaggerated, absurdly funny performance. It takes skill and preparation to be that outrageous. So, for example, our current political situation shouldn’t be farcical to most people – the actors are all terrible and the exaggeration too ordinary. It’s silly, but it’s not good enough to be a proper farce. But White Liars and, in particular, Black Comedy, are farcical in all the right ways. 

PICTURE: Peter Mould

White Liars was a troublesome starting project for the playwright Peter Shaffer: he rewrote it three times to get it to where it is now – tempered by performances and the author’s repeated discomfort. It’s a one-act piece following a struggling fortune teller, who resides in a seaside resort that’s seen better days. Maybe there’s something more for us there than its rude original billing as a “curtain-raiser” for Black Comedy, at least in its connection to seaside strangeness and vanished empires. 

Black Comedy on the other hand is classic, and has even been hailed as “[One of] the funniest and most brilliant short plays in the language”. Shaffer’s core idea with it was to use inverse lighting to do a farce. In other words, large parts of the play happen ‘in the dark’ (during a power cut) but it’s during these sections that the theatre lights are up; and when the characters have light returned to them, the theatre lights go down. They act blind in the light and all-seeingin the dark. This is because what happens in the dark can be hilarious, but we never get to see it – it’s dark. Not so with this production.

In my opinion, Shaffer’s instincts were entirely right here: farce and ‘complete darkness’ work really well together. Sadly I wasn’t there to see exactly how Leigh Shine’s production will manage the play’s sometimes precise lighting changes, as the preview I attended was still early days – the cast’s second time rehearsing on stage, their first time rehearsing with large parts of the set present. This wasn’t immediately evident however. Even rehearsing late on a weeknight, most of the actors’ enthusiasm and grasp of the script seemed strong, and their early interactions with the set (vital for a comedy based on dark acting) showed a good perception of…well, imperception, and how funny it can be when carefully timed. Clearly they benefitted from Leigh’s decision to hold some rehearsals blindfolded. 

Talking about the rehearsal process of a different and earlier production of Black Comedy, Kenneth Tynan said “this was farce rehearsed in farce conditions”. Regardless of whether he meant that as a compliment, I think with this kind of play it must be a positive. There’s something about a good farce that can’t fail to bring out its actors’ natural sense of silliness and fun, and as the evening of my preview went on I was reassured to find everyone shifting into their roles and mirroring their characters’ peculiarities, even in breaks. I expect this’ll be an excellent running of a very well-conceived piece of theatre.

• White Liars and Black Comedy will be showing at the Stables Theatre in the Old Town from 5th to 13th April, usually beginning at 19.30.

• For more information on Leigh Shine’s previous work, Price on Application, look up our preview here and review here

Merlin Betts reviews an interactive theatrical performance by Man in the Moon Theatre, dramatised and adapted for running at this specific venue by Lisa Harmer-Pope and directed by Leigh Shine 

Price on Application is a play about culture and morals, identity and desire, home-buying and en-suite bathrooms. In the sometimes cavernous space of a quiet house in St. Leonards (up on the Green, heading towards Asda) the cast take their buyer-viewers not just on a tour of a property for sale, but a tour of historical meanings and values, told through the compelling and sometimes terrifying words and actions of a selection of well-formed characters. 

The suspiciously late group viewing of the property expresses strange early on, each room gently bleeding a sense of the macabre and decaying, which we largely expect from an old property, and so initially ignore. The leading estate agent (imagine a Victorian schoolmistress or governess) is reassuring with her control of the group and her excellent grasp of modern pop culture, especially the local East Sussex variety, and her Australian accent somehow further adds to the feeling that “yes, this is okay, this is a viewing after all” even as events reveal this isn’t the tour we were expecting. The audience is also neatly conveyed from room to room by a “mute assistant”, not unlike a maid and possibly connected with the property’s distant care-home past. Her gestures and presence provides comic relief and occasionally a spine-tingling drive to the next grim stage. 

Dialogue is excellent throughout and, whilst there must be a certain level of improvisation, good writing clearly shines through. The plot stretches its wings to cover numerous cultural and historical references layered with comedy and horror, whilst never losing the viewers in unnecessary complication or forgetting the core purpose. This is particularly impressive, or perhaps absolutely vital in an interactive performance.

While most viewers, sober and in suburbia, would be somewhat sedate at 10pm, there seemed to be ample opportunity for audience participation, as well as sufficient allowance for a more reluctant crowd. On the viewing I attended, the audience appeared happy to stay in the background and this was well-handled by the cast, keeping everyone appropriately on edge, but not forcing them into a level of involvement they couldn’t handle. 

I couldn’t help but wonder however, how the cast would have dealt with a more responsive group. Several moments suggested they were all prepared to improvise capably, but also prepared to warn people off or calm them down where appropriate. If there were more viewings on offer, I’d definitely attend again, although that might spoil the surprises. 

Leaving the house just over an hour after arrival, I found myself pleasantly confused about what was play and what was strange estate-agent mysticism running riot in a forgotten corner of what had seemed like reality. Did I just see a house worth buying or a piece of theatre? Should I ring up MADE (the estate agent who sponsored the show) in the morning? Would they take £250,000 bearing in mind the state of the property? Would that solve things, like those strange apparitions said? Who knows…but I’ll never view a viewing the same way. 

• www.facebook.com/ManInTheMoonTheatre

Stimmung is a German word meaning the atmosphere of home. It was used by Mario Praz in his standard work History of Interior Decoration to mean the mood created by beautiful furnishings. But anyone who has viewed empty houses knows that even without sympathetic decor, a house has an atmosphere. No 6 The Green, St Leonards has spadefuls of it – you may have seen it in Coastal Currents. Built in 1875 by Decimus Burton, it is extravagantly capacious and ripe for renovation. Once chilly dusk falls, it’s not hard to imagine a rich, gas-lit past suffusing our contemporary lives with smoke and shadows. It has inspired Lisa and Leigh to create an ingenious site-specific piece of theatre. I’m sworn to secrecy as to its subject matter by an oath so strong that not even a basin of C Note chocolate could persuade me to break it. It’s safe to say, however, that you’ll experience a range of emotions and there will be walking about. 

Lisa Harmer-Pope is a very experienced actor and inventive playwright. You may have seen her in the Kino-Teatr’s opening Irish play, the Magowan Trilogy by Sheamus Hanlon, in Dinner Thrillers, or her own work A Day in the Life of a Woman performed at the Roomz. Leigh Shine managed the Man in the Moon Theatre in London for years and gave an unforgettable performance at The Stables Theatre last year as the camp Edward Kynaston in Nell Gwynn. With this duo and with Jonny Magnanti and Elle Tipping in the main roles, you know to expect strangeness of a high order. 

If you’d like to gain an insight into the history and energies of the house and love a bit of detective work into Hastings’ past, my advice is: leave the dog at home to look after the children and take up your role as a buyer attending an auction and be prepared to bid. There are only places for 20 by the way, so pre-booking is essential. There are two tours each night, but tickets cannot be bought on the door.

• Tickets £11.25 (includes a free drink) Various dates available from February 21 – March 2 Tickets via www.eventbrite.com) or contact info@maninthemoontheatre.co.uk