Written and directed by Max Gill, La Ronde is an excellent play based on
the lives of men and women in Central London, 2017. La Ronde was originally set
in Vienna in 1897 so this new adaptation was refreshing and brilliant. Before I
saw La Ronde on 25th February, I had high expectations due to other
reviews and comments. But no amount of praise could've prepared me for how exceptional
it really was.
Once I got my head round how the characters are chosen, my first
question was, “are they mad?” It seems almost impossible but with the superb
direction and an extremely talented cast, it worked perfectly. At the back of
the stage in the centre was the roulette wheel which bore faces of four cast
members,
Leemore Marrett Jr,
Lauren Samuels,
Alex Vlahos, and
Amanda Wilkin. With
ten different characters, it was down to fate to decide who would play what.
Crazy, right? This means that each cast member would've had to rehearse each
character down to a fine art, and then perform it depending on what the wheel
decided. And when there are 3000 different versions of the play to be seen, no
performance is the same. For me, that's what makes it so exciting, it's
impossible to know what to expect. I was certainly not disappointed.
You could really tell how hard the cast worked to learn each
character. Even though they didn't know what they would be playing, every
single character was played with such conviction and passion that it felt like
you were really in these situations with these characters like a fly on the
wall. Alex Vlahos stood out for me in particular. He took each character and
made it his own, drawing the audience right in. Each person he played were
intense, passionate and had an element of comedy that made it all the more
fantastic.
The version of La Ronde I saw was pure brilliance. The
different scenes were linked one way or another and it made stark comparisons
that brought your mind back to another scene that you'd already seen. The play
focuses on the different relationships people in London have and it was so
diverse. There also couldn't have been a better place to house the play than
The Bunker Theatre. An underground establishment, the intimacy of the venue was
spellbinding. A tradition of The Bunker is post-show entertainment and after my
show we had La Ronde’s producer, Daniel Donskoy with bits from A Song Goes
Round. Although I didn't understand what he was singing, it was a fabulous bit
of entertainment after the show.
If you find yourself in London,
definitely go and see La Ronde. For an incredibly good price, you
can be immersed into a world like no other. With a different story each night,
what will your story be?
Written by Sophie Williams
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