[Shoot, Get Treasure, Repeat] (By: Mark Ravenhill) [published: April, 2008]

by Mark Ravenhill

Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat is an epic cycle of plays exploring the personal and political effect of war on modern life. The plays that make up Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat began life at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as Ravenhill for Breakfast (producedby Paines Plough), winning a Fringe First award, and the Jack TinkerSpirit of the Fringe award. They form a collage of very differentscenes, with each taking its title from a classic work. The plays werepresented in April 2008 in various venues across London, from NottingHill to a Victorian warehouse in Shoreditch, via Sloane Square and theSouth Bank. Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat was originally developed in association with the National Theatre Studio and Paines Plough, and was first produced as Ravenhill for Breakfast at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August 2007 by Paines Plough, with the support of David Johnson.

Genres: Plays, Theatre

Paperback

First published April 3, 2008

About the author

Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist.

His plays include Shopping and Fucking (first performed in 1996), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999) and Mother Clap's Molly House (2001). He made his acting debut in his monologue Product, at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He often writes for the arts section of The Guardian. He is Associate Director of London's Little Opera House at The King's Head Theatre.

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

For years I have been labouring under the misapprehension that Lord of The Flies and The Name of The Rose are the worst texts in English literature. Then I read this.

[Katerina Siapatori · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this play, Ravenhill examines the huge and the small impact war brings upon people regardless of their profession, sex, marital status, age or sexuality. Its force is destructive and its purpose is usually embellished by long lost ideals which during wartime can only come out as utopian. The violence is always there and not as much physically as I had expected. But the fragmentary stories the characters share are dreadful enough to be brutal.

Personally, I couldn't like the play however hard I tried. The repetitions were annoying to me even though I could identify their function. But the play was excessively lengthy and nearly full of anonymity which again was purposeful but still incredibly tiresome.

[Allison Tyra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Saw a production with eight of these scenes. Horribly written, nonsensical and way too focused on men sexually exploiting women, who the writer clearly doesn't understand and who are largely presented only in relation to their children or partners. By the third scene, my partner and I were seriously considering if we could climb over the back of the seats to escape, and not because of the heaviness of the material but because the writing was unbearable.

[Júlia Freitas]

Read Women of Troy for uni.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

ta bien

[ianthe · Rating 3 out of 5]

painfully timeless but clearly written by a man