Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
An English pub is the perfect setting for Dash Arts’ latest community-inspired adventure from creator and director Josephine Burton.
A storm is brewing in the town where the Albion pub resides, both meteorologically and politically. Inside the museum, Sanjana is a landlord on her last legs and ready to throw in the towel. Her husband is dead and her loving daughter only comes back occasionally these days. The fact that the pub is given the old British name is not a coincidence – a lot of research has gone into this, especially the international discussions with more than 700 people, whose conversations were made by Barney Norris into a script and Jonathan Walton into music.
Nor is it a coincidence that Albion’s host is British Asia; The rise of the far right is at the heart of every political conversation in Britain today and racial tension is one of the themes that the play explores.
We arrive in Albion the night a storm floods the streets and cuts off Labor MP Mary Parker (Gabriela Leon) and political consultant Tom (Kit Esuruoso). In the recent election in the town, most of the votes were spoiled and the turnout was very low. We see aftershocks. Sanjana (a superb performance from Bharti Patel) is Prospero’s counterpart in the storm around Albion. They run classes in political speech and two of the town’s lost people find refuge and their voice through regular meetings.
None of the songs are fingered, and they are sung only by the singers.
In the second half, local actors join the main group on stage as a collective group and two of them speak dispassionately about things that concern them – the lack of green space and the lack of male mentors. Leeds.
As a piece of theater, it falls between the two extremes (bar it), and the cast is not fully integrated, but it still disrupts the worldview already created by the main cast. It makes the whole thing worthwhile, which is important, but it somehow detracts from the drama of the piece.
