My pal went into the Donmar’s Measure for Measure expecting a fight. She’d read that Josie Rourke’s production presents the cut-down text twice. The first, set at the time of Shakespeare’s 1604 premiere, where deputy governor Angelo attempts to coerce soon-to-be-nun Isabella into sex to save her brother’s life. The second, set today – same plot but with a female minister harassing a young … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the handkerchief in Othello
No, not that handkerchief, the one that convinces Othello that his wife has been unfaithful. When Shakespeare’s hero finds that Desdemona has apparently mislaid the cherished keepsake from his mother, decorated with strawberries and traced with delicate patterns, he becomes suspicious; when led to believe that she has casually handed it to another man, he becomes murderous. The 17th-century … [Read more...]
Propwatch: home comforts
The pineapple icebucket in Home, I’m Darling; toothbrushes in Home; the doll’s house in Aristocrats; nothing in Pericles. I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a home in the last year or so. That need for a place of safety, in which you have a stake, is pressing – but hard to find. All those phrases run through my mind, warming or mocking depending on the day. There’s no place like home. … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the drip in Allelujah!
You may think you know what it feels like to be patronised. Well, become an elderly person – or someone who cares for them – and prepare to have the crap condescended out of you. As soon as you’re in a vulnerable position, people who would otherwise talk to you as a relatively competent adult breeze into your home, and tell you how bad you are at making the bed, or a cup of tea. They make … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the pencils in Fun Home
The urge to rewrite the past is irresistible. To make yourself more cool, your family more content, to turn grim endings into happy ones. Fun Home (at London’s Young Vic), the engrossingly imaginative musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, writes, draws and redraws the author’s past. Early on, it announces its two defining plot questions: how did Alison come out? Why did her father kill … [Read more...]
Tinsel
I’m always here for a disposable rush from a bit of shiny trash. But if there’s a message to the first part of Taylor Mac’s sock-knocking extravaganza A 24-Decade History of Popular Music – an epic sliver of an epic slab – it’s that trash can be treasure if you’re looking at it right. Mac’s piece has previously been performed over a continuous 24 hours. Each hour is dedicated to a decade of … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the blender in Julie
The talk around us was all about the dishwashers. ‘Look, there’s two of them,’ murmured the woman in front of us. ‘Three dishwashers,’ gasped a guy in the row behind. By the end, I counted four: it turns out there were seven. What else does the kitchen in Julie, Polly Stenham’s reboot of Strindberg, contain? An ostentatiously long table/worktop. A couple of cupboards fitted alongside the … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the flowers in Creation (Pictures for Dorian)
Beauty. Beautiful. Beautifully. It’s just possible I overuse these words. A quick search through my dropbox suggests that in the past year I’ve applied them to: Alina Cojocaru’s acting in Giselle; the final image (watches!) in Robert Icke’s Hamlet; Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Summer and Smoke; the difficult pleasures of Swan Lake; the pacing of The Inheritance; the handbells in A Christmas … [Read more...]
Odd ducks and different buds
‘You must have been quite an odd duck as a boy,’ I said to Barry Humphries, as the entertainer described his unusual devotion to Berlin cabaret artists, fostered in stuffy suburban Melbourne. ‘Yes, I was,’ he replied. He gave me a look. ‘I expect you were too.’ Guilty as charged: part of my duckery was also an interest in the sauce and swoon of Weimar performance – from Cabaret to Brecht/Weill … [Read more...]
My week with swans
I’ve spent a week thinking about swans. Ballet swans, mostly, with feathery bodies, aching hearts. Last Thursday, Liam Scarlett’s richly imagined Swan Lake opened at the Royal Ballet, replacing a 31-year-old version and offering an opportunity to rethink the way the story is told. I took part in some of the events the Royal Opera House held in its wake – interviewing artists, facilitating … [Read more...]