Love

Description

In the run up to Christmas, three families are placed into cramped temporary accommodation. A middle-aged man and his elderly mum, a young family with a baby on the way, a newly arrived woman from Sudan. Strangers. Forced together. No space is personal. In this play by Alexander Zeldin, written through a devising process, the audience are invited to bear witness to an intimate story of family love for our times. Love received its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in the Dorfman Theatre, on 6 December 2016.

Alexander Zeldin has, since 2011, formed an ensemble of actors in the UK with the aim of collaborating together long term in projects where he writes. Their projects include Doing the Idiots (National Theatre Studio 2012 - a response to Lars Von Trier's film The Idiots), Shemehe and Beyond Caring (Yard Theatre, 2013). His work has been recognised by a nomination to the Rolex Mentor Protege Award in 2012, for the leading young artistic voices of the future.

It's an elegy to an invisible class ... This is character-driven theatre at its purest ... It's a play about what unremitting poverty does to the soul, where poverty is not starvation, but life without dignity. * Spectator on "Beyond Caring" * Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point. * Time Out on "Beyond Caring" * Totally compelling ... This understated 90 minutes is quietly devastating ... As time moves, slowly, the whole thing gradually becomes more and more heightened, emotionally and theatrically. The beauty of the piece ... is that it eschews sob stories in favour of genuine tragedy. Just as these people keep themselves pretty much to themselves until the final, desperate moments, so the play always slyly shows and never tells. There are no big speeches. There is much awkward silence. People reveal themselves in small gestures ... There are gusts of sadness; moments of pure desolation. But mostly there is work, with people struggling to survive: to the end of the shift, the end of the day, to the end of life itself. -- Lyn Gardner * Guardian on "Beyond Caring" * This desolate, quietly intense devised drama gets under your skin and into your bones ... it's a ringing condemnation of an economic practice that puts profit before people and turns the basic business of earning a living into a barely sustainable, soul-destroying hell. Unforgettable. * The Times on "Beyond Caring" * Alexander Zeldin's devised drama gives an unforgettable taste of life at the bottom of the employment pile ... it has a rare quality of gripping authenticity. * Daily Telegraph on "Beyond Caring" * Zeldin boldly sticks to unostentatious naturalism and draws the audience into this world ... this raw, unsentimental piece has immense cumulative power and quietly conveys just what it means to live with such a crippling lack of security. * Financial Times on "Beyond Caring" * Beyond Caring is beyond praise. * International New York Times on "Beyond Caring" *