This lively revival of Steven Berkoff’s 1975 modern classic is energetically sweaty, if a bit messy as well.
‘No one coming out of this encounter is left unscathed’: THE CLAIM – Shoreditch Town Hall
The sickly, yellow lights of a featureless meeting room are making Serge thirsty. He just wants some water, to tell his story and get back home to Streatham.
BAD ROADS – Royal Court Theatre
It is one of the strengths of Ukrainian playwright Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s savage war play, Bad Roads, translated by Sasha Dugdale and part of the Royal Court’s autumn international season, that she shows not only what war is like for women, but also its corrosive effects on masculinity.
THE BLACK EYE CLUB – Bread & Roses Theatre
Zoe’s back at her commuter belt town’s refuge after her husband beat her up again. This time it’s because Palace lost. Last time, it was because she was nagging to much.
THE LISTENING ROOM – Theatre Royal Stratford East
Can violent criminals be rehabilitated, and can their victims ever forgive them? The Listening Room says yes. This verbatim piece tells the stories of three violent crimes, primarily from the perspective of the perpetrators. Some character background sets the scene for climactic moments where they commit their offences, but at least half of each of […]
EYES CLOSED, EARS COVERED – Bunker Theatre
Alex Gwyther’s Eyes Closed, Ears Covered is a slippery play that continuously raises questions. We’re immediately presented with Alyson Cummins’ concrete-grey, angular set, suggestive of a brutalist play park in a rundown housing estate.
PALMYRA – #EdFringe
Two men glide around the floor on small wheeled platforms. Like children, belly down on skateboards, they relish the speed and inability to control their paths.
KNIVES IN HENS – Donmar Warehouse
Star director Yael Farber’s revival of a 1990s classic is surely atmospheric, but it lacks symbolic weight.
AGAINST – Almeida Theatre
New American drama about God and violence is a bit baggy, but it is also often brilliantly perceptive.
PONYBOY CURTIS VS. – The Yard
Trying to write about Chris Goode’s latest Ponyboy Curtis show vs. is like trying to fit a hurricane into a canning jar. The energy, love and freedom on the Yard’s stage is irrevocably alive and unrestrained, and trying to pin this one-of-a-kind butterfly onto a page kills it a little, or a lot.
COMMON – National Theatre
History is a tricky harlot. She is bought and sold, fought for and thrown over, seduced and betrayed — and always at the mercy of the winners. In a general election week, it is hard to deny that still now we are the progeny of the possessive individualism of previous centuries.
KILLOLOGY – Royal Court
Sion Daniel Young is Davey, a fifteen-year-old tearaway who roams the streets looking for trouble. A traumatic incident several years before, severe poverty and a well-intentioned but clueless mum means he channels his anger into violent bullying.
KILLOLOGY – Royal Court
Owen fields three characters: Paul, smarmy son of an industrialist, has invented a game, Killology, in which players torture their victims. Sounds gross enough, but Paul has given it an extra dimension: you score more points depending on how creative you are in your torturing.
THE FERRYMAN – Royal Court Theatre
Set in rural County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in August 1981, the play takes place in the Carney home. This is a farming family, who grow cereals for export, and the head of the household is Quinn Carney (Considine), a former IRA man.
GUARDS AT THE TAJ – Bush Theatre
For its reopening, Younis has looked across the pond for a new play. He has chosen Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, which was first staged at the Atlantic Theatre, New York, in 2015, picking up an Obie Award along with other plaudits.
GUARDS AT THE TAJ – Bush Theatre
West London new writing venue reopens with an ethically troubling play about another architectural marvel.
GUARDS AT THE TAJ – Bush Theatre
West London new writing venue reopens with an ethically troubling play about another architectural marvel.
Text of the Day: Big Guns
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
BIG GUNS – The Yard Theatre
There are many powerful metaphors for our way of life: a casino economy, the society of the spectacle, a modern Babylon. But there is plenty of room for another one, something strong, something memorable.
KILLER – Shoreditch Town Hall
One of the reasons that Philip Ridley is the crown prince of imaginative playwriting is that he came at theatre from leftfield. In the 1980s, he didn’t go to drama school — he went to art college instead. This freed his mind from following established theatre conventions, and so anything was possible.
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