Unflinching and extremely hilarious, a new interactive ensemble piece by Untold Theatre explores the relationship between Katherine of Aragon and her Moorish servant Catalina.
Directed by Daniel Goldman, Catalina takes a quick but deep look at traditional and contemporary concepts of race and, at times, strikes dead on a nerve – albeit by tickling rather prodding viewers.
Writer Hassan Abdulrazzak’s dialogue rolls with wisecracks and wisdom and is handled adeptly by the play’s cast of four (Nicholas Waters, Leon Stewart, Nadia Nadif, and Zainab Hasan). Nadif (in her roles of wench Becca and Queen Katherine of Aragon) is especially generous in giving her audience plenty of well played reasons to guffaw.
I caught this show at Ovalhouse, as part of its FiRST BiTES work-in-development series. It’s on limited run with one more performance tomorrow (Saturday 4 April) before (hopefully!) going into further development and finding another performance space.
Ovalhouse is located at 52-54 Kennington Oval, SE11 5SW. Find out more at ovalhouse.com.
