When the great Victorian actor Ellen Terry was preparing to play Ophelia, she visited a London asylum to observe young women who might unlock the character. However, the madwomen were, she wrote, useless for research: ‘too theatrical.’ The interplay between playhouse and madhouse is a theme running unobtrusively through much of Bedlam, a fascinating exhibition at the invaluable Wellcome … [Read more...]
We’ll have a real good time
I rarely meet a revival I don’t like. Classic plays are good for thinking: they re-reveal themselves in each new production, and choices in text and staging function as a conversation between a past and present moment – whether sympathetic discussion or knockdown argument. And then comes Rob Ashford’s benighted retread of John Osborne’s The Entertainer, which doesn’t so much converse with the … [Read more...]
Queering the canon – the new normal?
In John Tiffany’s absorbing production of The Glass Menagerie (seen in New York in 2013, now playing at the Edinburgh International Festival), isolation is a defining note. The Wingfield family’s St Louis apartment is lapped by inky water, so that the rooms appear like islands. They’re marooned. The Wingfields are feely – so much feely – but rarely touchy. Cherry Jones’ mother … [Read more...]
The world is broken. Smile!
Tales from Edinburgh 1 What do you do when the world is broken? You can do worse than laugh. My usual taste is for dystopia, plays for endtimes that will sob you to sleep. I don’t go to the theatre to enjoy myself, thankyouverymuch, I get enough of that at home. And yet, a brief scurry through the Edinburgh Fringe unexpectedly skewed towards the bright – raucous, ramshackle theatre which took … [Read more...]
Propwatch: Richard III’s spine
When archaeologists excavating a Leicestershire car park in 2013 uncovered a battle-scarred skeleton, the emergence of its severely curved spine was the first strong indication that these were the remains of Richard III: England’s most notorious monarch, Shakespeare’s irredeemable villain. Further research and DNA testing supported the archaeologists’ theory: hitting a nerve at the juncture of … [Read more...]
Stainspotting
It’s the pale grey sweaters that are so creepy. Thin, tight, high necked, they cling to the performers’ bodies. They’re nubbled by nipple and you can practically count the ribs. And, within minutes of the two performers launching into the rancid domestic intensities and dance-lunge routines of I Heart Catherine Pistachio, a dark seep of sweat becomes visible. Rockpools under the armpits, rivulets … [Read more...]
Alien nation
London’s my city. Always has been and (I hope) always will. I’m a grandchild of immigrants, and grandchild too of a rootless, vicious century which has played havoc with the idea of home. Home is where you are for now. Home is where you hope you’ll stay, but you don’t count on it. I don’t suppose I’m the only person to keep a mental suitcase under the bed – if I had to, what would I take, where … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the egg in The Deep Blue Sea
You can’t look glamorous when eating a fried egg. Or tragic, or sombre, or noble. Can’t be done. As Hester, the anguished heroine of Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, Helen McCrory is all of those things for much of the evening. But not when she’s forking down an egg. (If you fear that knowing when McCrory eats her egg, or why, may spoil it for you, best come back in a few weeks. Let’s meet up … [Read more...]
Anywhere but here
We take the world with us when we go to the theatre. Our private swirls of panic and joy. Whatever public pains have been doled out. I came to Shoreditch Town Hall to see YOUARENOWHERE just a short while after hearing that MP Jo Cox had been murdered. Andrew Schneider’s 2015 New York hit is an immensely artful piece, but following Orlando, following everything, and carrying my own bag of private … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the sock in Phaedra(s)
British audiences are no longer scared of European theatre. It has taken us years – decades – to feel relaxed about non-representational stagings, actors stripped of plummy tones, the fourth wall not only breached but blown to smithereens. Ivo van Hove and Thomas Ostermeier are our adorable foreign uncles who visit every couple of years with cool gifts. Katie Mitchell, Simon Stephens and Lyndsey … [Read more...]