Month: August 2011
Bernarda Alba
Katherine Hare’s assured production of Michael John LaChiusa’s musical adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba – first staged in New York in 2006 – combines beautiful choreography, clever staging and full-blooded performances to strike a shattering emotional note that never seems strained. Antonio María Benavides, scourge of serving … Continue Reading Bernarda Alba
Interview: Ben Occhipinti
Never work with children or animals, so the old showbiz adage goes. Although youth theatre organisation ‘The Company’ has not yet attempted to bring an elephant on stage, it has spent the four years of its existence successfully challenging the idea that doing a show with young people is a … Continue Reading Interview: Ben Occhipinti
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This conceptually muddled production of Shakespeare’s enduring comedy successfully realises Theseus’s smugly affluent court on the first-floor terrace of the plush Bermondsey Square Hotel, but fudges the crucial distinction between city and countryside. Problems start with director Jayne Dickinson’s choice of ’70s fashion for every character except the fairies (dressed … Continue Reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Alma Mater
Empty rooms and family photos are reminders of things past, good and bad, now silent and packed away. It’s this sense of loss that Fish & Game’s haunting second piece captures so beautifully, weaving technology into dark fairytale. Given an iPad and headphones, you’re placed, alone, before a closed door. … Continue Reading Alma Mater
Around the World in Eighty Days / The Mother
Steam Industry Free Theatre returns to open-air venue The Scoop with a double-bill themed ‘Dangerous Journeys’. Performing Brecht’s Marxist rallying-cry ‘The Mother’ in the shadow of the gleaming Ernst & Young building is satisfyingly cheeky. But family musical ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ travels the distance between past and … Continue Reading Around the World in Eighty Days / The Mother
Interview: Kate Bailey, curator of Five Truths at the V&A
If the name “Victoria and Albert Museum” only conjures up images of classical statues and hordes of tourists admiring sumptuous dresses, trinkets and paintings from the past, prepare to be surprised this month; because if you venture away from the hubbub of marble-lined hallways and beyond the stately dazzle of … Continue Reading Interview: Kate Bailey, curator of Five Truths at the V&A