A vibrant, queered-up adaptation of a Lope de Vega play, Ripe Tomato, after Peribañez is value trying out at VAULT Festival
“All landlords aren’t particularly evil…”
Written by Siofra Dromgoole and Gráinne Dromgoole, Ripe Tomato, after Peribañez is a up to date adaptation of an early-seventeeth-century play by Lope de Vega. It’s a daring selection for younger firm Three Sisters Productions to convey to the VAULT Festival however in Avigail Tlalim’s manufacturing right here, it seems a reinvigorated little bit of traditional Spanish tragedy is simply what a chilly January evening wants.
The play has been relocated right into a South London squat and considerably queered up. New wives Cass and Peri live their greatest Pride-party-drug-taking-responsibility-free lives with their friends however when the proprietor of the place they’re presently crashing at does his personal crashing into their world, his instantaneous attraction to Cass units in movement a torrid and tragic flip of occasions.
Gráinne Dromgoole and Yohanna Ephrem are wonderful as Cass and Peri, their chemistry palpable of their electrical early scenes and plausibly challenged by the manipulations of Os Leanse’s Jeremy. The energy he wields, and his abuse thereof, is intelligently explored, complexities of its personal additional added into the combination. There’s sturdy assist from Olivia Mills’ Lujana, his assistant, who finds her personal reference to Cass and Peri’s pal Ines, a superb Camila Segal.
The solely slight mis-step with the present is available in the best way it makes use of sound. Music by PLUMM is created dwell, loops used notably creatively however within the already difficult acoustics of the Cavern, it too usually causes audibility issues. The ambiance it creates properly fits the reimagined world of this play however its script does endure for it. A little bit of tinkering there and this tomato can be actually ripe for the choosing.