Florian Zeller’s puzzles of the mind (The Father, The Mother, The Son, The Height of the Storm) continue to baffle audiences in his new play, The Forest, now in residence at Hampstead’s main house.
‘Undoubtedly stylish but seriously underwhelming’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre
Like being given a jigsaw with no corner pieces, the challenges of putting together what is happening in Florian Zeller’s The Forest means it is hardly worth the trip to the Hampstead Theatre.
‘A brilliant example of a post-dramatic play’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre
Florian Zeller’s superbly anti-naturalistic play is a philosophical puzzle that dissects our existential solitude.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: The Forest at Hampstead Theatre
On LoveLondonLoveCulture, Emma Clarendon rounds up the reviews for the world premiere of Florian Zeller’s new play The Forest, directed by Jonathan Kent and starring Toby Stephens at London’s Hampstead Theatre.
‘Like looking at broken mirror pieces’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
The play follows Pierre, a successful surgeon who’s married and the father of a grown-up daughter, as he juggles his professional and family life with having a mistress.
‘Zeller is like a more humane early Stoppard’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
The French novelist-turned-playwright Florian Zeller hit the British theatre scene a few years ago with two comedies: The Lie and The Truth, which at the time I described as “a punch-in-the-guts, cruelly affectionate, whip-smart ninety-minute treat”.
‘An extraordinary piece about infidelity, guilt & distorted reality’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre
It has been an extraordinarily fruitful partnership between writer Florian Zeller and translator-playwright Christopher Hampton over the past few years with adaptations of Zeller’s disconnected family saga The Father, The Mother and The Son.
NEWS: Gina McKee wages war as Boudica in Shakespeare’s Globe premiere
Gina McKee will play the title role in Eleanor Rhode’s forthcoming production of Tristan Bernays’ new play Boudica at Shakespeare’s Globe, the final season in outgoing artistic director Emma Rice’s Summer of Love season.
NEWS: Matt Smith, Daisy Lewis, Hugh Bonneville & more celebs announced for NYT’s 60th birthday gala
Taking to the stage at the Shaftesbury Theatre in celebration of National Youth Theatre’s 60th birthday will be former members including: Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Daisy Lewis (Downton Abbey), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Twenty Twelve, W1A), Timothy Dalton (James Bond), Jessica Hynes (Twenty Twelve, W1A) and Gina McKee (Our Friends in the North). More names are still to be announced.
Plays for my Brexit & Chilcot mood: The Truth, Faith Healer, The Spoils
Has anyone else had difficulty getting back into their theatregoing after the results of the EU Referendum? The two – excellent – plays I have managed to see since the UK voted to leave on 23 June, have both, in a strange way, deepened my Brexit despair too. Neither Florian Zeller‘s The Truth nor Faith Healer by […]
FAITH HEALER – Donmar Warehouse
Revival of the late Brian Friel’s 1979 classic is brilliantly acted, beautifully directed and haunting in its ambiguity.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Faith Healer at the Donmar Warehouse
Directed by Lyndsey Turner, Brian Friel’s 1979 play about the possibility of genius but the uncertainty of failure opened at the Donmar Warehouse last night. Faith Healer continues until 20 August 2016. Here’s what critics have been saying…
FAITH HEALER – Donmar Warehouse
A veil of rain surrounds the stage where three narrators will appear, each with their own version of a shared life “shabby, bleak, derelict”. Yet, in Brian Friel’s eloquent profound vision, it is a life as heartshaking and important. Frank Hardy is an itinerant faith healer, huckster and mountebank working the Celtic fringes; the others his robust old-school vaudeville manager Teddy, and his mistress Grace, who ran away with him despite her father’s fulmination about “chicanery”.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (7 Mar)
Top ten of the week, but there are lots of dark theatres, too, in London at the moment.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (22 Feb)
Top ten of the week, with new addition for Simon McBurney’s phenomenal The Encounter.
NEWS: Ron Cook joins Stephen Dillane & Gina McKee in Faith Healer at Donmar
The Donmar Warehouse announces that Ron Cook will complete full casting in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, joining previously announced cast Stephen Dillane and Gina McKee. Faith Healer is directed by Lyndsey Turner, who returns to the Donmar following her acclaimed productions of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Fathers and Sons. Award-winning Designer Es Devlin joins the creative team, her first time designing at the Donmar.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (15 Feb)
A Broadway comedy and two British created musicals arrive in the West End this week – one from last summer’s season at Bath’s Theatre Royal, the other after a long stage life of touring regionally and internationally for the last eight years. Will any of them make it to next week’s Top 10 list? This week’s main openings In London: …
A Florian Zeller hat trick: The Father, The Mother and The Truth
Is Florian Zeller the new Yasmina Reza? Certainly, he’s the most successful French playwright to hit English shores since Reza, whose 1990s hits – Life x 3, The Unexpected Man and, of course, the long-running (eight years in the West End), starry cast-rotating Art – were followed more recently by 2006’s God of Carnage in […]
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (1 Feb)
Mark Shenton’s top ten of the week, including Florian Zeller’s The Mother that has followed his play The Father (soon to return to the West End) to London from Bath. Plus, this week’s biggest openings.
THE MOTHER – Tricycle Theatre
THE EMPTY NEST, THE TROUBLED MIND Hold tight. It’s the French genius litterateur Florian Zeller messing with our heads again. We are confused, wary, deceived and unsettled by the tricks of emotional distress and delusion, imaginary conversations which might … Continue reading →
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