Sam Maggs
Staff Writer
The latest play in Jamie Lloyd’s “Trafalgar Transformed” series, The Pride explores a love triangle between two men and a woman, spanning the last thirty years. Starting Captain America’s Hayley Atwell, alongside Harry Hadden-Paton and Al Weaver, Lloyd’s play will examine how the change in social mores since 1985 has affected the relationships of characters Sylvia, Philip, and Oliver.
Speaking with the press, both Lloyd and writer Alexi Kaye Campbell are concerned about the global ramifications brought on by recent progress in same-sex rights. “When I wrote the play originally just over five years ago, it obviously came very much out of that time,” said Campbell. “There have been some extraordinary changes. Suddenly, things are really reaching this point where the debate is becoming more and more pointed.”
Campbell added. “It’s extraordinary. When we first ran the production five years ago, Jamie and I were always wanting to return to it, but in the right way, with the right actors at the right time. What’s thrilling about this for me personally is it seems to be just that. We’ve got extraordinary actors, and more than ever before it seems to be the right time to be reviving the play, so I couldn’t be happier.”
Director Lloyd agreed with Campbell, saying “One of the things that’s interesting about the play, it’s fascinating, even David Cameron said the other day, if you tell a group of people they’re undervalued, or not valued at all, they start to believe it. It’s interesting what happens if that group of people feel incredibly valued perhaps, or certainly more valued. Your whole mentality needs to shift,” said Lloyd, of the effect of recent progress in same-sex rights on his characters. “The character that Al Weaver plays in 2013 absolutely questions his need as a contemporary gay man for the idiosyncratic sex culture. The sex culture of anonymous sex. Of Grindr. Of cottaging and cruising. Whether that is absolutely necessary in his life.”
“Perhaps there’s something in the psyche of some aspects of some people within the gay community who are now questioning that need, whether it does indeed prolong that level of persecution?” questioned Lloyd. “It’s not saying that lifestyle is wrong, it’s saying that there’s an alternative. And I guess that alternative now is freely available to everybody, which is a genuinely, completely equal loving marriage. That’s something we never would have predicted five years ago.”
You can catch The Pride on London’s West End from August 8th to November 9th.
http://www.Facebook.com/PopWrapped
http://www.SoundCloud.com/PopWrapped
http://www.Twitter.com/PopWrapped
http://www.Instagram.com/PopWrapped
http://www.Pinterest.com/PopWrapped
http://www.YouTube.com/PopWrapped
http://www.PopWrapped.com
Author
