Robert Icke’s new production of The Wild Duck is bold and controversial but delivers an interpretation that strikes home very hard indeed.
‘Still slow cooked, but mmm… delicious’: THE WILD DUCK – Almeida Theatre ★★★★
Robert Icke’s conversational, documentary production of The Wild Duck at the Almeida Theatre makes this complex morality play immediately accessible.
‘The core of the play is beautifully, tenderly, sadly rendered’: THE WILD DUCK – Almeida Theatre ★★★★
Director Robert Icke, most ingenious of re-framers and refreshers, presents Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, a classic of pain and lies, with a touch of meta-theatre at the Almeida Theatre.
NEWS: Full cast is announced for Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at the Almeida in a new version by Robert Icke
The full cast for the Almeida Theatre production of The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen, in a new version created by the venue’s associate director Robert Icke, is Nicholas Day, Grace Doherty, Nicholas Farrell, Andrea Hall, Kevin Harvey, Edward Hogg, Lyndsey Marshal, Clara Read and Rick Warden.
‘Embracing the full diversity of British society in every shape, size, age & ability’: PERICLES – National Theatre
What is a national theatre for? You’d be forgiven for answering ‘complaining about’ given the amount of sniping regularly aimed at the institution. But with the launch of Public Acts, the National Theatre’s new national initiative, you feel that they’ve alighted on the answer.
‘Kinnear makes the classic soliloquies his own’: MACBETH – National Theatre ★★★
The politics may be clumsy but the acting is beautiful at the National Theatre. Make no mistake, Rory Kinnear is a magnificent Macbeth.
‘A red-trousered disappointment’: MACBETH – National Theatre
A whole lot of post-apocalyptic hurly-burly and sadly not much more besides – the National Theatre’s Macbeth really is something of a red-trousered disappointment.
For & against AGAINST at the Almeida Theatre
Reviewing in list form: for and against Christopher Shinn’s new play AGAINST, starring Ben Whishaw and Amanda Hale, at the Almeida Theatre.
AGAINST – Almeida Theatre
New American drama about God and violence is a bit baggy, but it is also often brilliantly perceptive.
TWELFTH NIGHT – Manchester
Even with the best of intentions, it can be a little too easy to forget that there’s more to LGBT+ than just the G. Representations of gay men are increasingly common in our theatres but pickings are slim if we look towards the lesbian, bi, and transgender characters and stories.
TWELFTH NIGHT – Manchester
“If music be the food of love, play on” and certainly the production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Manchester’s Royal Exchange is full of music, mirth and mischief, particularly during one particular night of mayhem.
BAKKHAI – Almeida Theatre
“Cleverness is not wisdom,” warn the Maenad chorus, as king Pentheus determinedly resists the rise of new god Dionysos’ cult in Thebes. Euripides’ Bacchae tells how the young god returns to his mother Semele’s home city to visit her grave, only to wreak terrible vengeance on Thebes’ young and arrogant king Pentheus, who refuses to respect his godhead. The Greek term for divine power, daimon, becomes a touchstone of Anne Carson’s new version for the Almeida: even the spelling of Carson’s title, Bakkhai, proclaims her intention to stay closer to the original texture of Greek. Euripides’ formal structure remains intact, lyrical choral odes alternating with intense scenes, and while Carson’s clear, crisp language (which retains ancient Greek cries of Euoe! Euoe!) mainly inhabits a timeless poetic world, she touches the contemporary from time to time: “Shall we call a cab?” elderly patriarch Cadmos asks the blind seer Teiresias as they set off in Bacchic regalia to join the revels. “It doesn’t sound very Dionysian,” Teiresias ruefully replies.