*CONTAINS SPOILERS* Chekhov and farce don’t mix. It’s not that we have to be stringent about obeying the circumstances Chekhov was writing in (I’m not a fan of period dress productions). But it’s worth remembering that farce as a genre is very closely linked to melodrama, which is what Chekhov later came to write against. There… Continue reading Wild Honey, Hampstead Theatre
LOVE, National Theatre
Most tragedies, or sad plays, are about dignity. Across every era, the most canonical tragedies are about dignity: Sophocles’ Theban Plays, basically everything Shakespeare ever wrote with a king in it – even post-Miller’s ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’ tragedies/sad plays (tragedies are sad plays) are about dignity. This is a sad play that’s about… Continue reading LOVE, National Theatre
Hedda Gabler, National Theatre
*CONTAINS SPOILERS* Hedda Gabler is a newly married woman with nothing to live for (and everything to lose). She’s sick of everything and bored by everyone but she doesn’t know what she wants instead. In this production, she’s not so much a woman who married the wrong man and doesn’t know what to do with… Continue reading Hedda Gabler, National Theatre
Top Ten Plays of 2016
1. Kings of War, TGA at the Barbican. Ivo Van Hove’s compilation of Shakespeare’s Henry V and the first tetralogy was the best of the Shakespeare 400 celebrations and proof that sometimes it’s better to not be reverent to Shakespeare’s text. I feel slightly guilty for liking it so much, because Toneelgroep Amsterdam has… Continue reading Top Ten Plays of 2016
Mary Stuart, Almeida Theatre
*CONTAINS SPOILERS* Icke has sexualised Schiller’s bare-boned political drama and centred it on the two women who could have so easily been in each other’s position. The blurb for Icke’s Hamlet comes to mind: ‘ghost/devil acting/madness be/not be’ But in this case: ‘Catholic/Protestant virgin/whore head of state/beheaded’ Who plays Mary and who plays Elizabeth is… Continue reading Mary Stuart, Almeida Theatre
