Gulbenkian

Description

L.O.V.E. is an immoderate Shakespearean ménage à trois, with a touch of Shirley Bassey. It is about passion, spirit, beauty, jealousy, manipulation, lust. Three lovers, recalling the poet, the “dark lady” and the “lovely boy”, perform the Sonnets, bringing to the texts a vigour, a passion, a tenderness and a desperation to match the extraordinary range and depth of emotion lurking not far below the surface of their elegant verse. Volcano’s Sonnets are not aloof exercises in poetic form – an athletic cast wrestles breathlessly with their language, and sweatily with one another. Volcano grapples with one of the greatest collections of classical poetry in English, sweeping aside the dusty academic appreciation that turns thousands of children off poetry for life, in favour of a red-blooded entanglement with texts that are alive with possibility.

                                                               
L.O.V.E. is a theatrical landmark – a highly-charged and athletic classic that helped define the term “physical theatre”. Bringing together Volcano’s Paul Davies and Fern Smith with Nigel Charnock (formely of DV8) and the bold, sumptuous design of Andrew Jones, L.O.V.E. represents a historic collaboration of some of the most distinctive pioneers of British physical theatre in the 90s. The show’s irrepressible energy, savage passion, exquisite language and arresting design make it one of Volcano’s most enduring and memorable works.

L.O.V.E. was originally produced in 1992, and won a 1993 Time Out Theatre Award. The show has toured to the Grec Festival in Barcelona, the Wiener Festwochen, and the first International Theatre Festival in Buenos Aires. It has also visited Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Holland, Norway, Serbia and Brazil. L.O.V.E. was revived in June 2003 and toured to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“This will go down as one of the extraordinary shows of the year. The entire performance is like one long lovemaking session- and nearly as enjoyable. It’s magnificent and it isn’t war.” Time Out 1993

“From the tender to the obscene, from the erotic to the crude, the triangle stroke, kick and kiss and convince us that love hurts. Until you have seen Volcano you have not really seen dangerous theatre.” The Guardian 1993

“It is rare, as a regular theatre-goer in a western country, to see a taboo aired, broken, stamped on and thrown away in the space of a few lusty seconds.” The Financial Times 2003

www.volcanotheatre.co.uk

Tickets:
Full £10
GulbCard £8
Student £6
GulbCard student and Gulbenkian Education Network £5

Website

www.volcanotheatre.co.uk