By Gavin Elias

Art seldom converges with insanity more intimately than it does with ‘Crave’. The penultimate work of British playwright Sarah Kane (who, after struggling with severe depression and psychosis herself, committed suicide in a mental institution), ‘Crave’ unfolds as a character study of the broken human mind – a theatrical freight train into the turbid depths of psychological agony. It’s a play that dismisses all niceties and euphemisms from the outset, and one that makes no attempt to refine or simplify the complicated (and even confusing) nature of its subject material. Accordingly, it’s also a supremely challenging play – both to understand, and to stage. Yet this fact only makes the achievement of the cast and crew of the student-directed, UCC-BSS production of ‘Crave’ even more remarkable, as their rendition of the work cannot be described as anything less than a terrific success. By embracing an unsettling and difficult work with creativity, finesse, and emotional intensity, they have delivered something both elusive and startling – a performance whose brutal power is surpassed only by its lyrical elegance and poignancy.

By Gavin Elias

It’s a shame really, when we finally realize how badly ‘Sucker Punch’ misses the mark. At first glance it certainly seems intriguing enough.  Directed by Zach Snyder, the visually innovative director of ‘300’ and ‘Watchmen’, the film strikes up with a promising premise: a girl placed in an asylum by her abusive stepfather slips into a sort of ‘Alice in Wonderland with machineguns’ as she tries to escape the horror of her surroundings and achieve freedom. It’s the kind of premise that almost screams potential.  Yet by the time the credits roll, the viewer is firmly out of fantasy land and fully aware of the reality that ‘Sucker Punch’ is, for all intents and purposes, a dud – an unfortunate misfire of a film whose biggest weaknesses seem to lie not in concept, but in execution.

By Gavin Elias There are musicals, and then there are Musicals – the second being arbitrarily defined here as those rare theatrical events that flood the senses, seduce the ear, and invigorate the soul, even […]

By Gavin Elias With ‘The King’s Speech’ having been nominated for 12 Academy Awards, it seems almost redundant to point out that the historical drama is a sharply effective film – one able to effortlessly […]

By Gavin Elias Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic work, ‘No Exit,’ is surely one of the more challenging plays to produce at the secondary school level, with its intimate cast, weighty themes and a plot whose power […]

By Gavin Elias There are a great deal of adjectives that could be applied to ‘Inception’. Perhaps the most pithy is ‘masterful’. Striving to construct what has been trumpeted as an ‘existential heist film’, director […]

By Gavin Elias Vetoed Productions’ ‘Lysistrata’ is undeniably a curious beast – on one level, it is the type of crass play that puts one in mind of small child who is constantly pushing the […]

By Gavin Elias ‘Avatar’ is perhaps the quintessential Hollywood blockbuster; produced and directed by industry king James Cameron, and snatching the title of most expensive film ever made, the movie is one tuned superbly for […]