More Light Please delivers emotional take on economic migration

Source: The List (Issue 662)
Date: 27 July 2010
Written by: Mark Fisher

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This article is from 2010.

More Light Please delivers emotional take on economic migration

One-woman Fringe show drawn from experience of moving from Poland to Ireland

Natalia Kostrzewa is sitting in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Teatr Praga, enjoying the early evening air. She’s just performed her one-woman show, More Light Please, drawn from her experiences of moving to Ireland, and is delighted to have delivered it in a word-perfect English for the first time. More delightful for the audience is her distinctive Dublin accent.

‘For theatre purposes we had to make it more dramatic, but most of it is true, either about me or people I met,’ says the actor, who worked with director Jerzy Lach to build the very physical performance. ‘I didn’t want to make myself pathetic. I wanted people to see the emotion.’

Telling the story of a 16-year-old Polish girl working in a Dublin shoe shop while dreaming of becoming an actor, the play is less about the question of economic migration – as it might have been just a few years ago – than about the challenges of establishing yourself in a new country. ‘I am an immigrant, a Polish girl in a different country,’ she says. ‘But I wanted to focus more on the girl growing up.’

New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 7–29 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 2.45pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £6.

This article is from 2010.

More: Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh Festivals, Fringe, Jerzy Lach, More Light Please, Natalia Kostrzewa, Previews