Photos: Alex Brenner

EAST

An Atticist production (UK)

Role: Movement Director

Director: Jessica Lazar

Collaborators: David Doyle, Anna Lewis, Carol Arnopp, Odinn Orn Hilmarsson, Boadicea Ricketts, Debra Penny, Jack Condon, James Craze, Russell Barnett

2018 - Kings Head Theatre, London

Nominated for 5 Off West End Awards / OFFIES 2018 (Best Director, Best Movement Director, Best Ensemble, Best Lighting Design, and Best Female in a Play)

EAST received 9 ★★★★★ and 19 ★★★★ reviews

“[a] brilliant production…Yvan Karlsson’s movement direction is breath-taking.”
- London Grip

“Tightly directed by Jessica Lazar with movement director Yvan Karlsson, this is an electrifying journey through East End life, as exciting as a rollercoaster ride on Southend Pier.”
- British Theatre

“…the flow is enhanced by Yvan Karlsson, the movement director, to create evocative pictures with a minimum of props. …some of the best moments are when they work as an ensemble with energy and intensity.”
- Pocket Size Theatre

“weaponising words is only half the story here. Berkoff has a penchant for pumping his plays full of kineticism, and the cast's ability to sketch scenes using little else but their bodies, drags us into nightclub dust-ups, mucky backseat cinema fumbles — and the full horror, and horrific boredom, of the characters' so-called lives.”
- The Londonist

“Physically and vocally demanding, the ensemble work together exceptionally…fierce, physical, and ferocious…A fantastic production.”
- Stage Talk

“every inch of the limited stage area [is used] to push [the] players through exhaustive choreography as they fight, mime silent movies, turn into motorbikes (you have to see how Condon and Craze combine for that sequence!) and dance…visually and emotionally inventive…”
- I Thank You Theatre 

“remarkable…[the] five-strong cast wriggle and writhe, spit and snarl their way across the intimate, sparse space like grotesque marionettes, all to a cheery Cockney piano accompaniment.”
- The Stage