How to Hold Your Breath

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Starting with a seemingly innocent one night stand, this dark, witty and magical play dives into our recent European history. An epic look at the true cost of principles and how we live now. Harris was born in Oxford and brought up in Scotland. She studied zoology at Oxford University, followed by an M.A. in Theatre Direction at Hull University. Themes and context [ edit ] Topsy-turvy life … Maxine Peake and Peter Forbes in How to Hold Your Breath. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Women in Drama: Recreating Theatre for the 21st Century Women in Drama: Recreating Theatre for the 21st Century

Starting with a seemingly innocent one night stand, this darkly witty and magical thriller by Zinnie Harris dives into our recent European history. This story will be told, the way it has always been told. What else use is it otherwise? The hags on the heath. The woman who went mad. The man who became a tyrant. Please list any fees and grants from, employment by, consultancy for, shared ownership in or any close relationship with, at any time over the preceding 36 months, any organisation whose interests may be affected by the publication of the response. Please also list any non-financial associations or interests (personal, professional, political, institutional, religious or other) that a reasonable reader would want to know about in relation to the submitted work. This pertains to all the authors of the piece, their spouses or partners. A witty performance from Peter Forbes as a librarian with more than a passing interest in creatures of the underworld – no relation to Rupert Giles – and a helpful collection of books catered for every possible, niche eventuality; How To Look Like You’re Enjoying Yourself While Your Skin Is Repelled, How To Get To Sleep Despite The Extreme Heat etc etc. In a nutshell?Everything happens on the same junk-covered set, with no sense that Dana and Jasmin are actually travelling anywhere. Coupled with Dana’s hallucinogenic visitations from both Shaeffer’s increasingly agitated Jarron and Peter Forbes’s amusingly prissy, quasi-angelic librarian and Featherstone almost seems to be interpreting ‘How To Hold Your Breath’ as taking place in its protagonist’s head. But to what end? If none of it is really happening, the geopolitical stuff loses value, as does Jasmin, whose heartbreaking, ugly late monologue about her baby is one of the play’s stand-out moments. Clearly it is at least real on some level, but Featherstone muddies it enough to sap the play’s momentum, while the relentlessly dour tone squishes the considerable sparkle in Harris’s dialogue. Oresteia: This Restless House | Citizens Theatre". Citizens Theatre. 2017-08-15 . Retrieved 2018-10-15. Professor Zinnie Harris FRSE - The Royal Society of Edinburgh". The Royal Society of Edinburgh . Retrieved 2018-03-14. Nothing ever really bad happens in Europe,” one sister tells another in Zinnie Harris’ nightmarish fantasy How To Hold Your Breath. In little more than a few explosive minutes, this is proved unequivocally false as the banks close their doors, hospitals demand cash in exchange for aid and former female lawyers and primary school teachers scout out territory for a whole new line of work.

BBC Arts - BBC Arts - How to Hold Your Breath at the Royal Court

Now in the realms of fantasy, the play appears to become a magical Faustian fable, yet still just about rooted in reality. However, Harris steers the play in another direction where reality fractures in a journey that increasingly becomes a nightmare. Society and the economy disintegrate around them as the women’s trip turns into a desperate bid to flee as illegal immigrants to safety in Africa. Wilson, Tanya (2000-08-03). "Arts: Zinnie Harris, the prizewinning playwright talks to Tanya Wilson". The Guardian . Retrieved 2018-10-15. Harris has directed for a number of theatres, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Traverse Theatre, The Tron Theatre, 7:84 and the Royal Lyceum Theatre. In 2017 she directed Caryl Churchill's A Number for the Royal Lyceum Theatre and was awarded Best Director in the 2017 Scottish Critics CATS awards. [24] Recent directing work includes The Duchess of Malfi, Christmas Tales, Scent of Roses for the Royal Lyceum Theatre where she is currently directing her new version of Shakespeare's Macbeth with the title Macbeth (an undoing). [25] McGinty, Stephen. "Toil and trouble to put Lady Macbeth in the spotlight". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 2023-01-15.

Zinnie Harris had three major new pieces of work presented at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017. This Restless House was presented again, alongside two other of her plays, putting Harris's work in the centre of Festival Drama programme that year. [18] Maison Antoine Vitez / Centre International de la Traduction Théâtrale". Maison Antoine Vitez (in French) . Retrieved 2018-10-15. Dana is so upset that, the next day, she almost misses a presentation about “the customer experience” that she has to do for work. The nightmare deepens. Dana’s sister, Jasmine, tries to help. But she has her own intimate concerns. The pair eventually set off on a journey across Europe. The names Berlin, Budapest and the Adriatic drift through this symbolic itinerary. The nightmare deepens. More and more. Yet just as the devil persecutes them, so they acquire a guardian angel in the shape of an ever-helpful Librarian. Always on hand to offer a parody of self-help books, he has suggestions for every occasion. So what, you may well ask, is going on? I assume Jarron, whose attempt at paying Dana for sex is steadfastly refused, represents the reduction of all human relationships to a monetary transaction. The librarian, who pops up at regular intervals in Dana’s life with a succession of “how to” books, symbolises a consumerist belief in easy solutions to every problem. Dana herself, meanwhile, is a woman of principle half drawn to, and half repelled by, the glittering prizes offered by a corrupt society. What we see is how Dana would react if the normal roles were reversed and, as Europe collapses, she were turned into an economic migrant.