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VALIANT
Verbatim Theatre CLICK HERE VALIANT WEBSITE
THAT DAY:
Featured at the Accidental Festival at the ROUNDHOUSE THEATRE
Featured at SOLOS produced by Adam Line at Star of Kings
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VALIANT :
Longlisted for 2015 Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award
Three Weeks ★★★★★
Offering a thoroughly intense 70 minutes, this verbatim piece is adapted from the interviews of thirteen women about their experiences of war. This show promises, and then delivers, some serious emotional impact. It gives a platform to the often overlooked war-time experiences of women, in countries spanning from Japan to Northern Ireland, from Afghanistan to San Salvador. The four female actors each give strong dramatic performances, particularly in terms of assuming the accents of the women interviewed, and these performances offset one another beautifully. Despite only being a few days into the festival, I already know that I will be pushed to find a theatre show that tops this. -Megan Wallace
The New Current ★★★★★
Every now and then a piece of theatre comes about that is, quite simply, essential. -Niger Asije
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Female Arts ★★★★★
You must watch VALIANT. -Effie Samara
Broadway Baby ★★★★
Valiant is a gripping example of theatre which forces us to confront the harsh realities of war by telling stories we would rather not hear. Hayton-Keeva wanted to see whether there are women who have been affected by war in the same way as men. She concludes with ‘I found them easily and I found them everywhere’. -Lettie Mckie
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Fest Magazine ★★★★
Valiant is a defiant, horrifying and beautiful attempt to make us remember. -Sean Bell
Theatre Bubble ★★★★
Valiant is an exclusively female driven production; not only are the characters, cast and writer female, but also the production team behind the piece. A strong counter message to the absence of women in leading creative roles within the theatre industry, this play is a visible testament to the vitality and drive of its principle creator, writer and performer Lanna Joffrey. -Olivia Coxhead
Edinburgh Festivals Magazine ★★★★
Amidst the flurry of street performers, local and exotic cuisine and the odd comedian or two, there often exists a production which is significantly poignant. Lanna Joffrey’s adaptation of Valiant Women in War and Exile by Sally Hayton-Keeva is a must see for anyone who desires an intuitive insight into war through the female perspective. -Dominic Corr
Ed Fringe Review ★★★ | ★★★★
Overall this performance successfully breached boundaries, experimented with evocative emotions, played with poignant memories and steered away from cliché war productions to present an innovative and truly moving collection of very individual perspectives, grouped under the rare role of the “valiant woman in war and exile”. -Genevieve Cox
a sensitively performed and powerful rendering of Joffrey’s script which accomplished its intention to provide a voice for the disenfranchised women of war. -Freya Routledge
SENSE memory
published by the online poetry site, unFOLD
12:46 am Greenpoint, Brooklyn
After a deep session of rain in April
I walk through walls of smell
Not the expected wet trash smell that makes tourists affirm why they don't live here,
But the unexpected smell of wet earth and watermelon?
The unexpected memory of picnic time digging through the ground and Mom breaking open the green to get to the pink.
In addition to adapting the book,
Valiant Women in War & Exile
A book a verbatim war interviews by women
into a verbatim play, "Valiant";
Lanna contributed to the introduction of the
second edition of Valiant Women in War & Exile
edited & interviewed by Sally Hayton-Keeva
Contributing writer for three
McGraw Hill Books:
25 Great Student Speeches in 25 years
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Get Off My Brain
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It Doesn’t Take a Genius
Featured Poet at Farrago Poetry Slam at Poetry Cafe in London
The Scotsman's Joyce McMillman
"If you care about the experience of women caught up in war, you shouldn’t hesitate to spend an hour watching Valiant, Lanna Joffrey’s adaptation of a book of unforgettable verbatim interviews recorded by the late American writer Sally Hayton-Keeva. Valiant records the experience of women in war from Hiroshima to Belfast, and to the death camps of Europe in the Second World War; each voice is identified only by a single Christian name, and beautifully brought to life by a company of four actors. And what is striking about this beautifully-pitched performance, which depends almost entirely on the vocal skill and presence of the actors, is not only the utter horror of what these women have witnessed and endured, but the magnificent, positive passion for peace, and for the building of a world in which such horrors can be laid to rest, that seems to have inspired so many of them; in postwar lives still haunted by horror, but also rich in purpose and love, and in determination to become the mothers – or midwives – of a better future."