Theatre Reviews

Brighton Festival 2012: Vanessa Redgrave, The Rest Is Silence, Hangover Square

bella Todd Monday, 07 May 2012

If you weren’t already aware that the Guest Director of the 2012 Brighton Festival is acting royalty, the preponderance of fop fringes and artfully flung scarves at the Dome Concert Hall on Saturday night was a good clue. Vanessa Redgrave is the figurehead for this year’s reliably eclectic (if a little conceptually convoluted) programme. And judging by the opening Q&A, dotted with as many grassroots political activists as members of the Redgrave clan, she’s going to be a busy one.

Globe to Globe: Othello, Shakespeare's Globe

joe Muggs Monday, 07 May 2012

The masterstroke of this take on Othello was to draw its focus away from race. It might seem odd to say that of a production in the rhyming vernacular of hip hop in which the Moor was African-American and the rest of the cast were not – but it was deftly done, and as a result avoided any number of crass parallels that could have been drawn, instead focusing on the meat of the play: love and betrayal among men.

Carousel, Opera North

graham Rickson Sunday, 06 May 2012

Feeling apprehensive about opera companies tackling Broadway musicals is understandable. So if you’re still wincing at the memory of Leonard Bernstein’s excruciating 1980s recording of West Side Story, relax - director Jo Davies’s intention was to cast “opera singers who can really, really act” and avoid the potential pitfalls of a fully-fledged operatic approach. And the singing in this new production is consistently good; brilliant in places.

Comment

Globe to Globe: Richard II, Shakespeare's Globe

Fisun Güner Sunday, 06 May 2012

Mention that a Palestinian theatre company are performing Richard II and the play’s themes are immediately thrown into sharp relief: usurpation, homeland and banishment, and the idea of a literally God-given mandate to rule amongst a resistant people. It is the hope of great art that it brings peoples and nations together, but not at the expense of highlighting issues that tear them asunder.

Einstein on the Beach, Barbican Theatre

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Saturday, 05 May 2012

Einstein on the Beach was meant to be one of the jewels in the crown for the Cultural Olympiad. The celebrated 1970s collaboration between Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs - which Susan Sontag claimed to be one of the greatest theatrical experiences of the 20th century - was receiving its UK premiere at the Barbican Theatre last night, thirty-six years after it was first created. And what we got was a technical shambles.

Comment

Brimstone and Treacle, Arcola Theatre

Demetrios Matheou Saturday, 05 May 2012

Life was altogether richer when Dennis Potter was around to provoke us, to make us look queasily at the corrupt, hypocritical or despairing aspects of our lives, ever entertainingly, with a wink and a song. Whenever a Potter play or serial was to air on television, one knew there would be plenty to talk about.

Globe to Globe: Cymbeline, Shakespeare's Globe

ASH Smyth Friday, 04 May 2012

This retelling of the Cymbeline story opened – or at least appeared to open – with the entire cast contributing their tuppenceworth on the issue of what the story of Cymbeline actually was. And fair dos.

Love, Love, Love, Royal Court Theatre

aleks Sierz Friday, 04 May 2012

The best playwrights have an antenna-like ability to pick up, and respond to, the new conflicts and fault lines that appear in society. Over the past five or so years, the antagonism between the baby-boomer generation, who are now parents with everything, and their kids, who have nothing but debts, has increasingly intensified.

Globe to Globe: Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's Globe

william Ward Thursday, 03 May 2012

There has long been a conviction in Italian drama circles that there exists a “Special Relationship” between themselves and il Bardo di Stratford: something to do with the complexities of Elizabethan English syntax and the unusual amount of words of Italian that Shakespeare appropriated from the dominant European language(s) of theatre of his day.

Comment

Globe to Globe: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe

alexandra Coghlan Tuesday, 01 May 2012

A comedy of alienation, estrangement, and magical metamorphosis – if ever there was a Shakespeare play made for the linguistic transfigurations of the Globe to Globe season it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unmoored from the familiar English text and cast adrift in a forest of mischievous Korean spirits, you couldn’t wish for livelier or more bewitchingly colourful guides than the actors of the Yohangza Theatre Company.

Comment

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★★★★★

‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway

Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.

★★★★★

‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman

Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.

Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.