Feast (a play in one cooking)

Parrabbola Theatre, York

Olivia Negrean

Feast (a play in one cooking)

Director: Olivia Negrean

Translation: Jelena Ljumović

Cast:

Emilia – Beatrice Ragea

Lady Macbeth –  Marie Rabe

Lady Anne – Charlotte Coletta

Imogen – Hannah Lucas
Ophelia – Olivia Negrean

Isabella – Sara Barison

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays with a staggering 1,191 individual characters: 147 women and 1,044 men. This is one story about 6 of those women, from different parts of the world, and even different times. Little did Shakespeare know that, centuries later, his characters will come together, off the page once more. But this time just for dinner. Although it is never just dinner, is it?

An international cast bring six of Shakespeare’s most memorable women back off the page

and onto the stage. This time, outside their well-known stories and circumstances.

FEAST premiered at the International Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk, Poland in 2017, and has since been performed at:
Voila! European Theatre Festival
Romanian Cultural Institute, London
York International Shakespeare Festival
Verona Shakespeare Festival
Craiova Shakespeare Festival

Following the performances in Gdansk, FEAST has been translated into Polish and performed in Rzeszow Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre.
The play has also been translated into Romanian for the Craiova Shakespeare Festival.

“If Shakespeare’s characters are so very famously human, then what better fun than writing some of his women off the page and into a kitchen to watch them inter-act, and to wonder how they get on? Without their controlling men and with a feast to keep them busy they turn out to be endearing, original and fascinating. Unsurprisingly, these women turn out to be peace-makers. I so enjoyed watching Olivia Negrean’s ideas unfurl, and I highly recommend this company play.”

Janet Suzman, MBE

Six of Shakespeare’s leading women have come together. Emilia brings the wine, Ophelia helps with a salad, Lady Macbeth works on the soup, Imogen tends to the barbecue, while Lady Anne and Isabella have both brought dessert. Each woman has her own story to tell, and her own view on the stories of her peers.​

As the meal comes together, it becomes clear these iconic characters have been brought together for a reason: to decide whether to change their stories and thereby change the future of womankind, or stay within the confines of what’s been written?

This otherworldly opportunity provides a fantastic avenue for discussion and encourages the audience to think again about Shakespeare’s women. Lovingly crafted by Romanian-born writer Olivia Negrean with a mixture of Shakespeare’s own text, production reviews, and observations about the various plays, FEAST is a poetic and heart-warming production.