Productions:

Eyes Catch Fire
by Jason Hall

1 - 26 June 2004
Finborough Theatre

Tickets: £10/£8 concs
Tues - all seats £8 / Sat all seats £10
Curtain at 8:30
Box Office: 020 7244 7439

WINNER OF THE 2003 HERMAN VOADEN CANADIAN NATIONAL PLAYWRITING AWARD.

“Evil happens in the human heart. Deepest jungle or biggest city...the place don’t matter. It’s in the heart of a person where the wickedness burns.”

On the day of her son’s baptism, Mary Caldiera receives the one guest she least wants to see: herself. Forced to revisit the past by a vision of her fifteen-year-old self, Mary is vividly transported back to her youth. But as the events of an unimaginable tragedy begin to unfold all over again, will she be able to keep her memories repressed? Or will the Caldiera Family discover the truth about the desires, betrayals, and deaths that tore their family apart over a decade ago…

EYES CATCH FIRE is a daring new drama that fragments time and shifts reality to tell the highly personal story of a family's destruction while simultaneously exposing the larger, political implications of immigration and post-colonial life. Vigorous and suspenseful, the play spans two decades, transporting the audience from the freezing suburbs of Canada to the scorching wilderness of British Guyana. A must-see for those who love a theatrical experience that is both exciting and thought-provoking.

London-based playwright Jason Hall is the youngest person ever to win the prestigious Herman Voaden Playwriting Award for EYES CATCH FIRE. Judged “blindly” (the playwrights’ identities remain hidden until the competition’s completion), the hounour is granted biennially to a Canadian playwright for a single outstanding work. EYES CATCH FIRE has subsequently been workshopped on both sides of the Atlantic. This is its first full production. His recent play, GBS, is currently being produced in Toronto, Canada.