Chekhov classic from the team behind the West End hit Summer and Smoke is too middle of the road
The post Three Sisters, Almeida Theatre appeared first on Aleks Sierz.
‘Seems strangely prophetic in Brexit Britain’: EAST – King’s Head Theatre
This lively revival of Steven Berkoff’s 1975 modern classic is energetically sweaty, if a bit messy as well.
‘Pinter’s most canonical drama still works’: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY – West End
With its episode of a game of blind man’s bluff being both very funny and rather horrible, this is a Birthday Party for a generation brought up on The League of Gentlemen.
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS – West End
From its haunting title, to its moments of explosive dialogue, this is a modern classic, which when it was first staged won Mamet the Pulitzer Prize. Set in Chicago, it shows a group of slick hustlers who have to sell tracts of indifferent Florida real estate.
ROAD – Royal Court Theatre
Powerful revival of Jim Cartwright’s 1986 modern classic comes alive in all its noisy, vulgar and transcendent glory.
LOOT – Park Theatre
Anniversary revival of Joe Orton’s black farce about money and death is a delight from start to finish.
KNIVES IN HENS – Donmar Warehouse
Star director Yael Farber’s revival of a 1990s classic is surely atmospheric, but it lacks symbolic weight.
WOYZECK – Old Vic
It’s a radical rewrite. Gone is a lot of the mystery and the poetry of the original. In their place is a contemporary, accessible version which emphasises realistic psychology (a lot of backstory detail) and social realism (a lot of childcare detail).
Text of the Day: The Treatment
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
NUCLEAR WAR – Royal Court Theatre
Text can sometimes be a prison. At its best, postwar British theatre is a writer’s theatre, with the great pensmiths — from Samuel Beckett, John Osborne and Harold Pinter to Caryl Churchill, Martin Crimp and Sarah Kane — carving out visions of everyday humanity in all our agonies and glee.