After Electra, Tricycle Theatre

Rehearsals began last week for the black comedy After Electra, April de Angelis' first play to come to London since Jumpy earned a well-deserved West End transfer starring Tamsin Greig in 2012. 
After Electra - play summary
With echoes of Stephen Beresford's The Last of the Haussmans, at the play's heart is a woman conflicted between her roles as both artist and mother. Daughter Haydn arrives to help celebrate her mother Virgie's birthday. But instead of the standard cake and candles, the mother's plans have a sinister edge. Over the course of a year, in a country home in Essex, we share Haydn's struggle to reconnect with a mother she blames for the disintegration of her childhood. "Being a mother is like being a madwoman," Virgie observes, "You’re visited by a kind of insane, boundless love for your children that has no known precedent...you'll have to forgive me and help out. It'll be cathartic."
April de Angelis: plays
Playwright April de Angelis submitted her first script as part of her PHD. With over 25 produced work in theatre since 1988, she is a rare and fiendishly intelligent writer, with a gift for dialogue.  Perhaps her most famous work is Playhouse Creatures, which focuses on five actresses in 17th century London and felt as fresh as ever in a recent five star revival at Chichester Festival Theatre. After Electra returns to the theme of mother-daughter relationships explored so deftly in Jumpy. Commenting on the resonance of maternal love in her work, de Angelis says "your imagination can get very tied up. But the real resonance is yourself, your biography, it's the best guide."
Samuel West - director
Samuel West (of the theatrical West clan) directs. His illustrious acting credits include everything from Hamlet at the RSC, ITV's Mr Selfridge and the film Notting Hill but he has also proven himself as a talented stage director; his recent direction of Close the Coalhouse Door with Northern Stage was a triumph.