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Plays: 1 That Boy / Dry Ice / Clean / Chef / Battleface / The Love I Feel is Red / With a Little Bit of Luck / Layla's Room / Rashida / Power of Plumbing /This is How it Was
Sabrina Mahfouz has been called 'theatrical dynamite' by The Independent and '[one of] our most interesting playwrights' by Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. As a recent elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is a playwright, poet, essayist, children's author and activist whose work explores a variety of mediums in challenging and genre-defying ways.
Her first play collection brings together a unique mix of published and previously unpublished works for the stage, including a Off West End Award-winning play for children; a Fringe First award-winner; a BBC Radio & Music Best Drama award-winner and a Sky Arts Academy award-winning play.
From the explosive poetic monologue play Chef to the rhythmic drive of With a Little Bit of Luck, this collection fizzes with infectious lyricism that captures Mahfouz's work for the stage in a variety of different forms, proving that contemporary theatre remains boundless in terms of its ability to spark debate and move audiences.
Her first play collection brings together a unique mix of published and previously unpublished works for the stage, including a Off West End Award-winning play for children; a Fringe First award-winner; a BBC Radio & Music Best Drama award-winner and a Sky Arts Academy award-winning play.
From the explosive poetic monologue play Chef to the rhythmic drive of With a Little Bit of Luck, this collection fizzes with infectious lyricism that captures Mahfouz's work for the stage in a variety of different forms, proving that contemporary theatre remains boundless in terms of its ability to spark debate and move audiences.
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 21, 2021
4 stars.
I really loved the first 15 minute play in this collection, That Boy. It showed some very authentic dialogue and a good use of rhythm. The characters are vivid and clearly have both a strong class and gendered outlook. The dialogue is very realistic, yet pared down to have a good amount of dramatic intensity. We instantly understand who these characters are and the world they inhabit. This might actually be one of my favourite scratch night plays I've read.
However, the rest of the collection is very episodic. Mahfouz is clearly ridiculously talented, but other than the first play in the collection, she decides to go for something more poetic than realistic. That's just not my style. I'm not a big consumer of poetry, and many of the plays here have long, dense poetic monologues. I prefer plays generally that play with rhythm between characters instead. Monologues feel like the opposite of drama in some ways.
Having said all this, I will keep my eye out for Mahfouz's future work and hope she writes more in a realist mode.
I really loved the first 15 minute play in this collection, That Boy. It showed some very authentic dialogue and a good use of rhythm. The characters are vivid and clearly have both a strong class and gendered outlook. The dialogue is very realistic, yet pared down to have a good amount of dramatic intensity. We instantly understand who these characters are and the world they inhabit. This might actually be one of my favourite scratch night plays I've read.
However, the rest of the collection is very episodic. Mahfouz is clearly ridiculously talented, but other than the first play in the collection, she decides to go for something more poetic than realistic. That's just not my style. I'm not a big consumer of poetry, and many of the plays here have long, dense poetic monologues. I prefer plays generally that play with rhythm between characters instead. Monologues feel like the opposite of drama in some ways.
Having said all this, I will keep my eye out for Mahfouz's future work and hope she writes more in a realist mode.
Displaying 1 of 1 review