Voted Best Show at Prague International Fringe Festival (2007)
Nominated for Total Theatre Award at Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2007)
Barrow Street Theatre, Fringe NYC, 2008
Vis Motrix, Thessaloniki 2008
Politheama, Ioannina, 2008
Hora Theatre, Athens, 2008
Divadlo Nazbliko, Prague, 2007
Sweet ECA, Edinburgh, 2007
Performed in Greece, Prague and Edinburgh by Marlene Kaminsky, Stamatina Papamichali,Miguel Pinheiro
Performed in New York by Alexandra Dyranis-Maounis,
Laura Morgan, Anastasia Revi
Designed by Maira Vazeou & Alan R. Brooker
Original music by Jonathan Bratoëff
Production Co-ordinators Alexandra Dyranis-Maounis, Martina Reynolds
Margot, the ''good witch'' of a rather odd little lonesome town wakes up to find herself in an even stranger place - the underworld. There she meets Rory the Rubbish Man, Bruno the Cook, Vivian the Duchess, Druna the Dreamer and Edgar the Mayor... . How come they are all here...? What happened to their lonesome little town...? What happened to the ''big day'' they all worked so hard for...? A vibrant underworld comes to life with powerful images, live music and theatrical animation with a contemporary touch. The innocent and the macabre come together with the dynamic visual style of Theatre Lab Company to create a magical fairytale world.
Velvet Scratch is a new and innovative devised performance conceived by Anastasia Revi. On a deeper level, the story is an exploration of being perceived as misfits, outcasts, or eccentric, and the consequences of not accepting people as they are. The tragic and sometimes comic metaphorical characters and their stories are used to explore the many dimensions and meanings of such eccentricities.
Anyone looking for a macabre, visually irresistible, fantasy tale should check out the Theatre Lab Company's Velvet Scratch - Voyage of No Return. This production creates a mood which is both whimsical and dark - no easy task. The three main characters reveal their stories in twisting narratives that overlap and intersect; the overall approach is innovative but off-putting (as experimental theatre can sometimes be). Although the characters are not as richly drawn as they could be, fans of Guillermo del Toro (PanÕs Labyrinth) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) will no doubt love this surprising and enchanting production.
Nestor Cervantes, Time Out, New York ****
Anastasia Revi's unconventional musical Velvet Scratch - Voyage of No Return, is a fascinating and sinister tale about the small and lonesome village of Velvet Town. The clever and dark style of the play reminded me of Tim Burton and Edgar Allan Poe. Despite a small stage and enough time to transition between scenes, the performers are always enticing. The lacy and shredded props and detailed set design add to the mood, captivating the audience. To top it off, the instrumental music is perfect at portraying a feeling simultaneously eerie and sensual, threatening and soothing. On the whole, Velvet Scratch - Voyage of No Return is a great production, although recommended for mature audiences able to swallow the imaginary violence draped around Velvet Town.
Sabrina Khan, Fringetastic
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2007
A crackling gramophone record plays a haunting '20s ballad as the audience take their seats in front of a stage. The setting is so grotesquely beautiful that it seems almost a shame to disturb the peace as characters take to the stage, beginning to move collectively like a broken automaton. As the four immensely talented performers begin their tale of love and death, pieces of the scenery seamlessly become props and actors become scenery. Velvet Scratch is a rare treat: a piece of wildly experimental theatre that remains accessible and spellbinding to the last second. Narrated by a ghost and accompanied by some mesmerising acoustic guitar, this tale of murder, suicide and a doomed wedding could easily have slipped into melancholy, but an extremely quirky sense of fun is cultivated throughout. The actors revel in their multiple roles, flitting between characters simply by pinning a new section onto their costume. What results is a stunningly visual story that has all the qualities of a dream: so free-flowing and unremitting that it all appears effortless. While the tale itself is not particularly emotionally stimulating, the sheer eeriness of the play reverberates around one's spine long after it has ended. The dark and often obscure sense of humour will not appeal to all by any means, but those expecting a straight play obviously didn't read the programme. For those of us with an open mind and a desire to see something a little out of the ordinary, the most significant error of judgement in this weird little gem is to limit it to just seven performances.
Adam Knight, Fest - The Skinny ****
A DELICIOUSLY dark opening segment, complete with the crushing of strawberries, hints at the potential sensory delights of this piece, as three characters begin to tell the tale of their own death and demise. Following their stories, the characters take a journey to the port town from where they came. Here, the locals' stories are told and their tales intertwined as the populace is reinvented using sound, movement and imagery, showcasing both the tenderness and the sorrow of their individual woes. Theatre Lab does well to splash its innovation and colour on to a largely blank canvas as it ambles from one scenario to the next. A live guitar accompaniment contributes well to the text and draws a firm line under prominent moments in the piece, and, some impressive costumes and a sparsely decadent set do much to capture the imagination. So too do some stand-out performances from a charming ensemble cast which plays well to its strengths throughout.
Review by Anna Millar, The Scotsman ****
The internationally acclaimed Theatre Lab Company bring their breathtaking show Velvet Scratch, rated Number 1 in the Prague Post Editor's Top Ten shows of the Prague Fringe Festival 2007, to the Sweet ECA Venue at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Well we all know how dark Prague is and that is why this show is here... Compelling narrative and highest production values.
John C Vassallo, Nightnews
Prague Fringe Festival 2007
Imagine Tim Burton directing a film version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story collection Innocent Erendira, and you'll have some vague idea of the stylishness and inventiveness of Theatre Lab's Velvet Scratch. It is a fantasy in a tubercular landscape, featuring a morgue of boisterous dead. The flawless pallor of the chalk-blanched corpses possesses all the moldering grace of their costumes: stunning suits and gowns cobbled from scraps of brocade and gunny rags. A little town has died, and it's fallen to one of the more lovely of the deceased to tell us the story of its destruction. The three performers, Marlene Kaminsky, Stamatina Papamichali and Miguel Pinheiro, expertly transform themselves into an entire cemetery of souls, including two rubbish collecting lovers, a countess with needles piercing her heart, a cannibal chef with an Edward Scissorshands hand of kitchen utensils, a chewing gum woman and a sibyl. There's also a mysterious guitarist, Jonathan Bratoeff, who haunts upstage left. Director/concocter Anastasia Revi is a gourmet of images. The level of invention in Velvet Scratch is breathtaking, and the whole is bloody beautiful. Without doubt, this is currently the piece that I'm telling everyone that they must go see. This is exciting theatre.
Steffen Silvis, Prague Post
Oh, the smell of fresh strawberries... Ravens, bloody hearts, undead, the underworld. Edgar Allan Poe and Tim Burton seem to have paid a brief visit to the Theatre Lab in London. Theatre Lab Company's latest production is a quirky and macabre piece of simple storytelling, set in an evocative underworld populated by three characters that, over the course of the performance, unravel the tale of their own demise and death. Accompanied only by a live acoustic guitar, punctuating and subtly underscoring the text, we are introduced to the underworld through the narrator's cry for the tastes of life - of blood - visually symbolized by (lovely smelling) strawberries being crushed in her hands. The strawberries will return... Having established the life of the dead, the actors proceed to introduce us to the port town whence they came. We are treated to a local rogue's gallery and their stories, played with imagination and visual flair. A through line begins to emerge as aspects of these stories converge and keep returning to ''the big day'' and Edgar (''my Edgar'' as our narrator refers to him) the mayor. The rich visual imagery and strength of the cleverly varied little stories carry us toward the seemingly inevitable tragic end of the main story. Of particular note are the stories of Graciella and her father and Theodore the captain. The poignancy, tenderness and sorrow which the main story is elegantly and ironically told and played would be ruined if I described it here. It's worth it. Oh, the smell of fresh strawberries...
Amiel Bruch, Prague TV
Talent and intelligence; qualities that fit perfectly the profile of Theatre Lab Company, reflected in this strange devised piece full of words, songs, movement and pictures... The Gothic decay, the supernatural mystery and death, filter through malicious irony, romantic humour and self inflicted paradoxes (Tiger Lillies without the song, Poe without terror). The (actors') presences that work as a continuous part of the deserted landscape fill up the space with an overwhelming energy of real theatre and virtuosity.
Eleftherotypia, Sotiria Matziri, Athens, 29th March 2008
I was lured into the dark, post-Goth universe of "Velvet Scratch", an incredible performance from London to Athens, at Hora Theatre. A theatrical poem about love and death...
Big Fish, Athens, 13th April 2008
If you decide to see Velvet Scratch, be prepared for one of the most astonishing performances. I am talking about a very dynamic play that combines physical theatre and audiovisual spectacle surpassing cultural boundaries, the typical and the taboo. A piece of work that is truly a poetic masterpiece in every level with a text that speaks to everyone's heart. Don't miss it!!!
Go Culture, Maria Damianidou, Athens, 22nd March 2008
