September 2013

This blog is starting at the beginning of the new WIC Year: September 2013.

The WIC Play Reading Group is open to any WIC Member interested in theatre – you don’t need to be a good actor nor does English need to be your mother tongue.  We meet at 1.30pm on the first Wednesday of the month – contact me at janet.middleton@yahoo.com if you’d like to know more.

Our First Meeting: 27 January 2011 - Remember that cake ladies?!?!

Since last September we have worked our way through the Alan Ayckbourn trilogy The Norman Conquests, and enjoyed seeing the same scenario being replayed through different eyes and angles.  We have also read Really Old, Like 45 – a play chosen simply for its wonderful title!  It was quite modern and different to those we had been used to, and envisaged a future when the elderly have to justify their existence. Jumpy was another modern play dealt with a mother and daughter relationship breaking down.  We then read Taking Steps, another Ayckbourn relationship comedy, so we followed this with a serious piece: Look Back in Anger which was certainly a more difficult read and although to some degree dated, it was an interesting piece of social history.

The 'Interval' is always an important part of our meetings!

Normally at our meetings I spend a great deal of time trying to ensure that everyone gets a fair turn at reading, but in May we approached Equus differently.  Having read the play I felt it would benefit from us having just one person play an individual role throughout, and so this is what we did.  Those of us who were there felt that on this occasion we benefited from this approach, as the play is compelling and we felt we were able to engage better with the characters and the depth of the play when we didn’t have to worry about who was playing which role at this point.  I think we all felt pretty drained by the end of the session!

We  finished the WIC Year by reading The Audience.  This play was, at the time of the reading, being performed in the West End with Helen Mirren winning great acclaim for her role as Elizabeth II.  This reading was made in homage to the fabulous NTLive transmissions, which have been stopped in Belgium.  There are a number of people lobbying for them to be reinstated, and if you are interested in knowing more about this please don’t hesitate to contact us at goliveinbrussels@gmail.com or follow our blog at http://gontliveinbrussels.wordpress.com/.

Celebrating Rina's Birthday!

Future plays on our agenda include Tom and Viv (about TS Elliot and his first wife), Our Man in Havana, The Mousetrap and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Ideas for plays to read are always welcome!