Desire Caught by the Tail by Pablo Picasso

About

The Nunnery Gallery is proud to host the first UK production of Picasso’s rarely produced play Desire Caught by the Tail in two exclusive outdoor performances to mark the end of their summer event programme.

Award-winning company LUXE will present Picasso’s highly stylised and surrealist piece of theatre, directed by founder and Bow Arts artist Cradeaux Alexander – recently praised for his “extraordinary” direction by Indie London.

Written in occupied Paris in 1941, the play is bawdy and burlesque. With characters including The Tart, The Onion, Big Foot, Thin Anxiety and Silence, Picasso’s play is a play of misery, discomfort, anguish, hunger and passion that is caught in the impossibility of its fulfilment. It is outrageous and funny, with a lyrical spoken language which incorporates high poetics and absurdist juxtapositions.

Desire Caught by the Tail had its first public reading in 1944 and featured performances by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Leiris and Raymond Queneau. It was most recently performed at the Guggenheim, New York in 2012, who previously hosted the play in 1984 when the players included Louise Bourgeois and David Hockney.

Founded by Artistic Director Cradeaux Alexander, LUXE is an award-winning company dedicated to experimenting with form and theatrical language. LUXE’s performances explore the space between theatre, visual art and performance.  Their work has enticed its audience to discuss their productions “in more detail and at greater length than any other play we we’ve seen recently” (Peter Brown, Scene4 Magazine).

The play runs in the Bow Arts courtyard on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 August.