REVIEW: Afterglow at Waterloo East Theatre

After a successful run earlier this year at Southwark Playhouse, Afterglow has returned to London, this time with a new cast and new venue - Waterloo East theatre. It is worth noting that this play was running off Broadway and kept extending and extending due to popular demand and ended up grossing over $1m despite being in a 69 seat venue. A production that I also saw and loved. 

Afterglow is the story of a gay couple living in New York who have a somewhat open relationship. After they invite a third party in for a threesome and one of them begins to get feelings for him, things become very complicated. Whilst marketing as a show about gay sex, I completely disagree with this. I think it’s a show about relationships, love, trust, breaking trust, maturity, modern reality and ultimately, sacrifice. 

After seeing both the off Broadway production and the Southwark Playhouse production I think it has remained largely the same in terms of direction and design. 

BLOG: Has West End Bares failed to deliver diversity in their promotion?

On Thursday (25th July 2019), MADtrust announced the 10th Anniversary performance of West End Bares, this year the theme is ‘Stripped: Back to our Birthday Suits'. 

There is no denying that West End Bares does an amazing job; it creates awareness and ultimately raises a lot of money. The charity, having been around for 25 years now, “raises funds for HIV and AIDS projects that build awareness and provide care, support and education in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa”. Alongside West End Bares, they also run West End Eurovision, West End Christmas and put on cabarets throughout the year amongst other things. 

There have been issues raised on twitter about the inclusion and diversity of the West End Bares 2019 promotion. You can see from the poster that only a certain type of body image is represented.

This raises the question; ’Has West End Bares lost the true meaning of the event?’

REVIEW: Afterglow at the Southwark Playhouse

Afterglow was only meant to run for an 8 week limited engagement in New York, after having extended numerous times and finally playing for 14 months it finally comes over to London in a newly staged production at the Southwark Playhouse. 

Following the story of married couple Josh and Alex, who are soon to be welcoming a child into their household, we see their open marriage in its bare bones played out on stage with the addition of Darius, a boy who once only came over for a threesome, become a centre part of their relationship. 

What the play asks us is what is a ‘normal’ marriage or relationship? How do we make compromises but still try to remain happy within ourselves and in our partnership? It leaves us with these questions that we, as an audience, leave trying to pick a side and make things right in our heads. 

What is so fantastic about the writing, by S. Asher Gelman, is that we get to really know every single one of the characters and we want them all to come out with a happy ending. The way the play finished is just a brilliant ending, opening it out to us and leaving us with no answer. Its a judgement free piece of work and he is not saying anything is right or wrong but is showing us how people minds work and what people need to survive.