Shakespeare
Matt Wolf
Time is a terrifying force in Romeo & Juliet, and Robert Icke's headlong production never lets playgoers forget that fact. Returning to a tragedy he first directed for Headlong touring company 14 years ago, Icke reprises many of the conceits deployed first time round, this time wedded to a starry company headed by Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe that, in the first act at least, gives pride of place to his supporting players.Some may resist the apparent tricksiness of devices that include repetitions or reprises of scenes, as often as not accompanied by searing flashes of light separating out Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Tim Crouch is one of our great theatrical alchemists. Most famously – in his conceptual show An Oak Tree – he creates a portrait of grief in which each night an actor who’s never seen the script before plays a grieving father who believes that his daughter has metamorphosed into an oak tree. What’s so extraordinary about the piece is the way that Crouch breaks down any factor that might seem to contribute to authentic emotion, carefully pointing up the show’s anomalies until the story itself grabs by us the throat. In his directorial debut at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, he does something Read more ...