Tucked up on a boat on the Grand Union Canal near Westbourne Park station, I feel an immense sense of community with my fellow audience members. We’re packed in, physically touching, and bound together in this powerful moment of political theatre. Outside, London roars: emergency services rush past and commuters wander home from work. We are at once inhabiting a theatrical space and a public area for all to share.
Excerpts from Fringe Review by Simon Jenner:
RECOMMENDED SHOW
"… It’s a unique experience, where Langridge works with Jayne McVeigh on supple fluid movement through the barge’s space, and Lisa Goldberg’s dramaturgy perhaps helps to tighten and interrogate the appalling assault of real events on the heart of an already powerfully-freighted play."
Hi Natasha, could you tell me a little bit more about In Memory of Leaves and what audiences can expect?
"A rhythmic roller coaster of passion, rage, sex and politics. It’s the raw truth from the mouth of someone (me) living through the emotional and physical consequences of ‘regeneration’ on an estate in North Kensington. Performed on a boat that sways when I move."
What was the main inspiration for the show?
London Theatre Guide
Natasha Langridge interview - Why I'm performing my work on a wide beam barge.
In Memory of Leaves, Natasha Langridge:
“Add to the wave; we are at a point where it is sink or swim.”
100 days on and the scorched tower remains exposed and bare. The tragedy at Grenfell Tower, in which at least 80 people died, highlights the long neglect of social housing. It’s part of a bigger problem. A problem that playwright, performer & activist Natasha Langridge is keen to shine a light on.
I had a chat with the lady herself on the phone recently.
Following on from Memoirs of a Tree, performed at last year’s InTRANSIT festival, Natasha Langridge returns in 2016 with another immersive monologue inspired by local life. In Memory of Leaves describes Natasha’s experience living in a block of flats on the Portobello Road council estate, which is being torn down by developers, and how all of her surroundings and green spaces are rapidly changing. The monologue also explores her recent work in Calais with the Occupy movement and highlights the insecurity felt when people are forced to say goodbye to the place they call “home”.
‘In Memory of Leaves’ and the Power of Site-Based Work.
Theatre is a collaborative art form, communicating its story and ideas through text, design, direction and performance. But another integral part of this collaboration is the physical theatre space itself. For Natasha Langridge's solo piece In Memory of Leaves, this space isn't just a storytelling venue — it's the subject of the story being told.
“In Lisa Goldman’s production there are scenes of tenderness and of violent fury. Yet while Shraddha is linguistically interesting, beneath the distinctive language is a straightforward story of forbidden love and its trials, not dissimilar to Romeo and Juliet... Shraddha has energy and some moments of real poetry, and, although at times soft where it might more credibly be bleak, it feels faithfully contemporary.”
Henry Hitchings, 05 November 2009
This is a play for the Angry Young Woman generation — full of spitting rage and sardonic streetwise contempt. Sexually abused by drug-dealing great uncle and physically abused by her boyfriend, Eva refuses to succumb to the victim mentality, and instead fashions herself as a twenty-first-century Siren who could tear strips off any soft-focus Hollywood goddess.