Knock Against My Heart

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Review for: Knock Against My Heart

At the Unicorn Theatre on Wednesday 15th October 2008

   This hour-long play, written by Oladipo Agboluaje and developed by Theatre Centre in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Brazilian theatre company Nos de Morro, is set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro is the base for this company, so the play was partly spoken in Portuguese with English translation. Having been told this beforehand, I expected it to be mainly in English but with Shakespearian language as the writer made known that play storyline was drawn form The Tempest. The Unicorn Theatre isn’t a very big theatre in terms of size and mainly aims their plays at a younger audience so I thought the storyline would be simple to understand with likable characters and audience interaction.

     With inspiration from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Knock Against My Heart focuses on many poignant issues such as betrayal, passion, revenge and just. It also explores power, freedom and manipulation. It tells the story of a dominant father, Prospero who is hungry for power of the land’s irrigation system but is also father to the innocent Miranda. The mysterious Caliban, who control’s the town’s water source, is battling with Prospero for freedom of himself and his people, yet successfully seduces Miranda, much to her fathers dislike. Meanwhile Prospero’s brother, Antonio provides comical entertainment with a secret motive.

   The performance used symbolism as its performance technique with each character having a type of animal to represent it. Symbolism was also extended to the set- design and props in the play with props acting as more than one item. Multi-rolling was touched but not used in depth and depended on throughout the play, making the cast very small, made up of four actors and actresses.

   

   The main characters of Knock Against My Heart were William De Paula who played Caliban, Mariana Whitehouse who performed as Miranda, Dani Machancoses who took the part of Antonio and André Santinho who played Prospero. Multi-rolling also took place by Machancoses and Santinho who played plumbers. The change in character was shown by them taking off their hat and coats and placing a bandana around their head.

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   William De Paula gave a strong, continuous performance as Caliban throughout the play, with his mysterious and animalistic mannerisms. At the beginning of the play, De Paula comes out from behind the favelas slowly, with his arms reaching up, peering over and perches on top of the mountain. This makes us feel as though he has a sense of control over the city and watches over them yet it also it makes us feel as though he is guarding and protecting them. We then see him open up from this controlling character into a passionate and confident singer. He ...

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