Preview: Schlock! at Newcastle Live Theatre

Rip up your copy of Fifty Shades of Grey

with performance poet Hannah Silva

Schlock!  
Newcastle Live Theatre 
Saturday 21 March

Hannah Silva, a writer and theatre-maker known for her playful exploration of language, performs her one-woman show Shlock! at Newcastle’s Live Theatre on Saturday 21 March at 7.30pm.

Schlock! is a powerful feminist satire made for the cut and paste generation. In the grand tradition of literary terrorism, Hannah has ripped up her copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and now, surrounded by the crumpled pages and with the help of radical punk-pirate Kathy Acker, she attempts to put the female body back together. 

Join them on a journey through texts and voices pregnant with pain and pleasure, mothers and babies, domination and submission. In a performance as strange as it is beautiful. There are no safe words here.

As writer, director and performer Chris Goode explained, on seeing a preview performance of Schlock! at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, "Schlock! is a whip-smart but irresistibly seductive tour de force from the always astonishing Hannah Silva: a high-risk entanglement of limbs and lines, a restless toss-and-turn of tongue meeting text in the heat of strangeness and the dark heart of desire." 

After her performance of Schlock!, audiences can join Hannah for an informal pre-show Q&A session about her innovative creative process.

Schlock! was originally commissioned for the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, where it premiered in a Saturday afternoon slot to an audience of over 250 people. A risk-taking piece of programming for a major poetry festival, Schlock! left audiences stunned, energised and, in the post-show discussion, deep in debate about sex, power, contemporary feminism, and the role of theatre to unsettle conventions.

As Maddy Costa, from The Guardian, explains “I can’t wait to see Schlock! in its next iteration, there was a moment (well, several) watching when I just felt dazzled by how assured Hannah is as maker/performer/person on stage, it’s really exciting but also properly impressive to watch." 

Schlock! was created for both hearing and d/Deaf audiences, and incorporates British Sign Language. Hannah was supported by Daryl Jackson (Dazzy Jacko), an expert on signed theatre who has advised companies and artists including Graeae and Caroline Parker.

A trailer is online at https://vimeo.com/117326210

Written & performed by Hannah Silva. Collaborators: Rachel Mars, David Lane & Daryl Jackson (BSL translation). Produced by Penned in the Margins. Commissioned by The Poetry Trust. Development supported by Birmingham Repertory Theatre Foundry and mac Birmingham. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Tickets:

Tickets cost £10 full price and £8 for concessions and include admission to the pre-show Q&A event with Hannah Silva. Tickets can be booked now by contacting Live Theatre’s box office on (0191) 232 1232 or by visiting www.live.org.uk. Schlock! is currently enjoying a national tour.