Afternoon:
15°c
Ravenhill's 16 mini-plays set for London premiere
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent31.01.08
Sixteen short plays written by Mark Ravenhill during the Edinburgh Festival are to have their London premiere.
The sequence of award-winning works will be performed in April at the Royal Court, the National Theatre, the Gate in Notting Hill and Village Underground, a warehouse in Shoreditch.
The idea of scattering the plays, called Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, across London is inspired by Antony Gormley's human sculptures sited across the city last year.
In Edinburgh, Ravenhill wrote the plays daily. They were produced by Paines Plough theatre company and readings were performed at breakfast time.
Their loose theme is the effects of the Iraq War on people in Britain. The cycle is an "epic made up of little-fragments". Ravenhill, 41, who hit the headlines with his play Shopping And F**king 12 years ago, said: "There are a few where I try to imagine what it's like there.
"But it's mostly about us going about our everyday lives knowing there's a war happening and how much we acknowledge that." The works range from a monologue to a play with two armies which could use 60 actors.
"In Edinburgh, there were a handful of people who came to every breakfast but they work as independent pieces. You get more pay-off if you see a few of them. I'm hoping there will be a few who go for the loyalty card in London."
Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Royal Court, said that scattering the shows across the capital was a way of retaining the spirit of the venture: "The idea of seeing a play at breakfast was so original and fun we wanted to find another way that would have a similar sense of excitement."
Radio 3 will repeat a broadcast of the longest work, comprising two of the originals combined. The others average 20 minutes.
• Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, various venues, from 3 to 20 April.
