Discover what is being said about the world premiere of Chris Bush’s new play which continues to run at the theatre until the 15th March.
WhatsOnStage: ” Some might consider a happy ending a gift when the news is so bleak right now. But it feels to me like a cop out, shrugging off any need for meaning and telling us nothing about the experience of womanhood, except it’s a gift, or something equally vague.”
The Reviews Hub: “So yes, even with misgivings about the fantasy diversions, Otherland remains a significant work. It lays out the experience of trans women without denying the pressures felt by many about what being a woman really is (discussions about whether Harry could, or should, join a women’s march underlying the point without bludgeoning us with it). Bush successfully avoids the pigeonhole of the Big Trans Play™, but at the same time, that is what she has created. Otherland is not a “worthy” piece – what it is instead is worthwhile, moving, and very much needed.”
The Guardian: “Brimming with humour and compassion, the story of Jo and Harry, a couple who go their separate ways, is a powerful reminder of how theatre lets us live beyond our own bodies.”
The Telegraph: “The playwright behind Standing at the Sky’s Edge returns with a thoughtful, affecting look at pregnancy and the trans experience.”
London Theatre 1: “I appreciate – a lot – that this wasn’t in any way finger-jabbing, preachy, angry rants instructing the great unwashed to educate themselves. There are expletives, sure, but only in the ways one might reasonably expect in everyday conversation. That there are trans women like Harry thriving in a successful academic career is pleasing to see. In the end, however, I didn’t come away with any takeaway messages. Everyone seemed to be getting on with life, and so I came away thinking I had better just carry on and get on with mine.”
The Arts Desk: “Bush’s writing is as fresh as a sea breeze and as lyrical as birdsong.”
Time Out: “Those resistant to trans justice are hyper-fixated on using biology and bodies to draw distinct lines between cis and trans lives. To point out contrast, otherness. What Bush does so deftly is to use this same focus to do the opposite, holding up two life-altering bodily changes in parallel and compellingly illuminating them as two sides of the same female experience.”
The Standard: “Three themes – the needs of a trans woman to live as herself, the pressure on women to reproduce, and the difficulty of entirely accommodating a partner – course through Chris Bush’s lively, humane and erratic play. It’s laced with music and given a fluid production by director Ann Yee. Though dramatically uneven and necessarily inconclusive, it’s very thoughtful, which is welcome in this era of yammering culture-war hatred.”
London Theatre.co.uk: “As a whole, it is an unwieldy and erratic piece of work but nevertheless big-hearted and watchable, bringing home the point that transgender people are not a threat and aren’t trying to “steal” anything – the way in which they are treated by society and the media is the problem.”
Broadway World: ” It’s not perfect, but embrace it’s bittersweetness, especially when the sweetness triumphs.”
To book tickets visit: https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/otherland/