A MANCHESTER GIRLHOOD 2O23

The Jewish Chronicle:  Julia Pascal interviewed about A Manchester Girlhood 21 April 2023

Women were invisible, I’ve put them on stage.  Playwright Julia Pascal tells the stories of her grandmother, mother and aunts, all marginalised and denied chances in their own time.  These are not idealised women or female, Jewish stereotypes, they are nuanced Jewish characters who reflect important crucial events in British and international history. PressReader.com – Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions

“A brilliant piece of theatre.” Lost In Theatreland

“Joyous and poignant and funny and sad.” HonoraryMancBlog

“Brilliantly emotive and educational.” Lost In Theatreland

“One of the main takeaways from this piece was Pascal’s dedication to telling female stories, empowering all the women in the play.” Lost In Theatreland

“Pascal’s work tugs at the heartstrings, offering a voice for their untold stories, as the girls navigate education, marriage, love, religion, and identity.” Lost In Theatreland

“This play really put things into perspective of our lives and what our immigrant parents went through to get us where we are today and Pascal captured that in A Manchester Girlhood.” I Love Manchester

“A Manchester Girlhood ‘moves in time and space’…The characters depicted as ‘children, young, mature and elderly women’…it was a masterclass.” HonoraryMancBlog

UNMISSABLE, INTELLIGENT AND INTIMATE I Love Manchester

12-37 2022

“To write an epic play on this scale, using only five actors, is quite an achievement”@londontheatre1
https://www.londontheatre1.com/reviews/1237-at-finborough-theatre/

★★★★ London Theatre 1
★★★★ Everything Theatre
★★★★ ReviewsGate

Michael Collins and Jewish nationalism” Julia Pascal Interviewed, Irish World 2022 https://www.theirishworld.com/julia-pascal/

Excerpts

LondonTheatre1, John Groves

“The highly talented cast quickly and skilfully draws the audience in so that we feel fully involved in the epic tale they are unfolding.”

“O’Connor has a beautiful poise and stillness in her portrayal that is infinitely watchable…”

“To write an epic play on this scale, using only five actors, is quite an achievement…”

“Pascal’s new play has opened up a period of British, Jewish and Irish history that has lain almost forgotten for nearly ninety years. The result is a gripping piece of theatre.”

Everything Theatre, Sara West

“This is an important and complex play that attempts to raise nuanced and controversial questions around Jewish violence and national identity.”

“The play’s reach is vast and it has been written specifically for a small cast who each undertake a number of roles. They are all beyond exemplary in their portrayal of their characters.”

ReviewsGate, William Russell

“The five strong cast come up with superb performances under the author’s direction…”

“…a really serious play with a great deal to say about nationalism, what makes a terrorist, what constitutes someone fighting for freedom, and how a family’s relationships are affected over the passage of some two decades by events not always outside their control.”

Mark Aspen, Harry Zimmerman

“…an absorbing and powerful piece of theatre.”

“The five-member cast are uniformly excellent and rise effortlessly to the challenge of creating a series of scenes which are believable, occasionally humorous, sometimes moving, but always engaging.”

Blueprint Medea 2019

“A hard-hitting but compelling evening.”
Robert Jackman, Spectator Life 2019

“The play, written and directed by Julia Pascal – and enjoying its world premiere at the Finborough Theatre – is powerful fare.”
Jeff Prestridge, Close-Up Culture   2019

“[Blueprint Medea] successfully spans vastly different worlds and cultural expectations all within the tiny intimate space that is the stage of the Finborough Theatre. Blueprint Medea is a multifaceted and complex drama, and is capable of making a connection with audiences wherever they may be.”
Dominica Plummer, The Spy in the Stalls   2019

“[Blueprint Medea] provides a powerful and hard-hitting female tale inspired by direct interviews with Kurdish freedom fighters, perfect for the intimacy and simplicity of fringe theatre.”
Francis Nash, The Upcoming  2019

“In Julia Pascal’s modern reconception of the ancient Greek tragedy, she is reborn as a former fighter for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)…It is an inspired transposition, and the themes of exile and female agency resonate in the modern day.” 
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian 2019

“An engaging and dynamic production, admirable for its risk-taking and originality of vision.”  
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian 2019

“A modern adaptation of Euripides’s devastating Greek tragedy, in which a scorned wife exacts bloody and heartbreaking revenge. Julia Pascal’s new version draws heavily on interviews with Kurds living in the UK and explores issues around immigration, cultural identity and female autonomy” 
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian 2019

“The script becomes beautifully laced with Lorcaesque poetry.”
Dominica Plummer, The Spy in the Stalls   2019

“To have such a profound effect highlights the power and importance of fringe theatre and writers like Pascal providing a voice for these voiceless females onstage.”
Dominica Plummer, The Spy in the Stalls   2019

“The undeniable richness and power of the storytelling and performances.”
David Guest, The Reviews Hub 2019

“Pascal’s writing style skilfully combines the demotic with the poetic.” 
Judi Herman, Jewish Renaissance 2019

 “Strong individual performances and moments of beautiful storytelling.”
Emma Lamond, London Pub Theatres 2019

The world premiere
★★★★ BLUEPRINT MEDEA, Close-Up Culture 2019
★★★★ BLUEPRINT MEDEA, The Upcoming 2019
★★★★ BLUEPRINT MEDEA, Jewish Renaissance 2019

Crossing Jerusalem 2015

“We’ve been ashamed of our voice: the secret history of UK Jewish theatre”
The Guardian, David Jays speaks to Julia Pascal, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/mar/13/uk-jewish-theatre-voice-secret-history

“Pascal has long interrogated Jewish attitudes and experiences without ever denigrating them. Here, too, she is even-handed .Israelis and Palestinians – all are subjected to the unblinking gaze of Pascal’s writing.”
The Times Higher Education 13/8/15
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/culture/crossing-jerusalem-written-and-directed-julia-pascal 

“A crucial piece… ‘Timeless’ is a word that is tossed around extremely frequently these days, but it is certainly the most appropriate word to describe Julia Pascal’s Crossing Jerusalem.” ★ ★ ★ ★
The Arts Desk  7/8/15
http://www.thereviewshub.com/crossing-jerusalem-park-theatre-london

Very Deep… A powerful account of a complex issue…. While the title suggests dynamic action, the small stage space and extremely personal scenes make for a claustrophobic, intense atmosphere, in which the dangers the characters face seem all too real. This climaxes with the disintegration of Varda Kauffman-Goldstein, wonderfully played by Trudy Weiss, whose exhaustion, even before her son, Gideon, is killed, represents not just a woman, or even a family, at breaking point, but an entire country.”
The Review Hub 07/08/2015
http://www.thepublicreviews.com/crossing-jerusalem-park-theatre-london/

“Julia Pascal’s play Crossing Jerusalem at Park theatre London about Arab/Israel conflict: intelligent, moving, true”
Melanie Phillips
@MelanieLatest

“[Julia Pascal’s] considerable body of work declares a fearless appetite to challenge these received opinions and an eagerness to expose the complex and uncomfortable truth.”
East End  Review 03/08/2015

http://www.eastendreview.co.uk/2015/08/03/crossing-jerusalem-julia-pascal-park-theatre 

“Julia Pascal’s play Crossing Jerusalem at Park theatre London about Arab/Israel conflict: intelligent, moving, true”
Melanie Phillips – Writer, columnist for TheTimes, London.
https://www.facebook.com/MelanieLatest/posts/930261500349338

Old Newland 2015

“An incredibly important production”
Metropolist 28/01/2015

St Joan 2014

“Challenging, erudite and above all, captivating”★ ★ ★ ★★
Broadway Baby 13/08/2014  
http://www.broadwaybaby.com/shows/st-joan/700167

“Barely 90 minutes in length, the play exerts a powerful grip using the simplest of means”
The Stage  

Nineveh 2014

“A compelling piece of total theatre that weaves testimony, storytelling, physical theatre and poetry into an opaque but thought-provoking exploration of redemption”
Time Out 19/04/2014
http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/nineveh

“NYU professor Julia Pascal’s play now showing in London” (Interview with Julia Pascal)
Washington Square News 10/05/2013
https://nyunews.com/2013/05/10/nineveh/

The Dybbuk 2010

“Elevating a folk tale to an existential meditation”
New York Times 23/08/2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/theater/reviews/23dybbuk.html?_r=0 

“It reveals a genuine imaginative flair…”
The Guardian

“…as spine-tingling as anything you’ll see in the theatre this year”
DYBBUK, The Independent

“Ms Pascal’s production is a piece of total theatre”
DYBBUK, Evening Standard

“… one of the most remarkable pieces of theatre I have ever seen”
DYBBUK, Plays and Players

The Merchant of Venice 2007

“Highly recommended”
BIG Q REVIEWS, The Merchant of Venice (The Shylock Play) 11/9/2007
http://quarmby.biz/reviews/Big%20Q%20Review%20Merch.htm 

Crossing Jerusalem 2003

“Pascal has long interrogated Jewish attitudes and experiences without ever denigrating them. Here, too, she is even-handed .Israelis and Palestinians – all are subjected to the unblinking gaze of Pascal’s writing.”
The Financial Times 19/3/03
http://www.cix.co.uk/~shutters/reviews/03017.htm

“…one of the virtues of this engrossing piece is that it reminds us that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is both shadowed by the decisions of the past and played out in a state roughly the size of Wales.Pascal very successfully breaks through the stereotypical idea of a homogenised Israeli society. By confining the action to a single day, Pascal captures the pressure-cooker intensity of Israeli life and shows how present actions are shaped by past guilts.”
The Guardian 24/03/03
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/mar/24/theatre.artsfeatures

“Julia Pascal’s seething and passionate new play comes as a salutary reminder that, just because the anxious eyes of the world are turned to Iraq at the moment, it doesn’t mean that other global troublespots have miraculously gone away.”
Evening Standard 10/4/03
http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/family-at-war-7429634.html

“Julia Pascal’s compelling analysis of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict crackles with tension. This is the most ambitious attempt to illuminate the world’s most intractable problem since David Hare’s Via Dolorosa.”
The Jewish Chronicle 2003

“A tightly coiled spring of tension encircles the dialogue. This play soars in its portrait of familial dissension. Pascal is excellent at getting across the bickering closeness. This is a brave and interesting play sowth some moments of real comedy and despair.”
Camden New Journal 2003

“Set over 24 hours in Jerusalem the play shows people split down emotional as well as territorial lines”
The Times 2003

“This is the most ambitious attempt to illuminate the world’s most intractable problem since David Hare’s ‘Via Dolorosa’. Compelling.”
The Jewish Chronicle 2002 

A Dead Woman on Holiday

This modern prose play is so organized in time and space that it acquires the kind of austere beauty and rhetorical tension we associate with the tragedies of Racine”
The Financial Times

Honeypot

“In London excitement is building for next summer’s Olympics. But does the shadow of Munich remain in the collective memory?… Honeypot connects past and present through a dramatic exploration of one woman’s journey into the Middle East revenge cycle.”
HONEYPOT, The Independent 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/honeypot-the-startling-story-of-the-killer-in-heels-2358004.html?action=Email 

Thomas Kampe in Theresa
Thomas Kampe in Theresa

Theresa

“Pascal’s play is a tense and stirring piece of theatre, acted with fierce intensity by an international cast” THERESA, The Times 2003

“… an excellent example of how skilled players can convey a wide range of character and emotion with only a few props and a shift of expression and accent”
THERESA, Jewish Chronicle 2003

“Truly experimental and truly European, Theresa plays with form on every level, fusing dance with theatre, music with text and juggling fragment of French, German and Polish within a predominantly English script… arresting”
THERESA, City Limits 2003

The Yiddish Queen Lear

The Yiddish Queen Lear

“Lovely singing, sensitive direction and a tragic historical twist, this play is an effecting and eclectic treat”
Evening Standard

“Pascal builds up an intricate portrait of a family fractured by sibling jealousies  and betrayals and seething resentments…a fascinating and enjoyable evening”
The Guardian

“This is a raw play. . . prepare to leave exhausted and angry”
TNT Magazine

“The play astutely explores the changing identity, the slow assimilation of diaspora Jews and notion of homeland. Ruth Posner is excellent as the imperious actress” 
The Jewish Chronicle

Woman in the Moon

The company perform with immense verve and minimal props, used with dazzling versatility. . .this show is physical theatre with a strong moral and political charge”
WOMAN IN THE MOON, The Stage

Dana, NT Bookstore

More

“Fair play: should gender equality in theatre be mandatory?”
EQUALITY FOR WOMEN Lyn Gardner, The Guardian 6/10/2011
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2011/oct/06/gender-equality-theatre-julia-pascal