The Sound of Music: decorative Nazis, delirious music
Going into the Arts Club’s production of The Sound of Music I could hardly have been more resistant. I doubt you could find a more conventional, less adventuresome Christmas show. And the politics of The Sound of Music are weird: it tells the story of the Nazi...
Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul
THIS IS A GUEST REVIEW BY MAX WYMAN What has made Crystal Pite “one of the dance world’s most sought-after artists” (The Guardian) is not simply the ravishing movement sequences that she invents. Her dance-works are animated thoughts about the complicated...
Kuroko: All dressed up
Sure, Kim Kardashian wears great clothes, but does she have a soul? There’s a similar problem — although it’s not nearly as severe or creepy — with Kuroko: the production is stunning but, narratively and emotionally, Tetsuro Shigematsu’s script is perfunctory. On...
Turn of the Screw: Fails to twist
There’s too much too soon. From the get-go, we know things are going to be creepy. In the story, which playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has adapted from Henry James’s 1898 novella, a young governess accepts a position from an eccentric Londoner: she will journey to Bly, the...
Escaped Alone: But we’re in this together
Go see this show. Because you should never ever turn down a chance to see a play by Caryl Churchill. She’s been one of the most exciting dramatists in the world for the last 40 years, and she will fuck you up — and reward you — every single time. In...
Certified: You’d be crazy not to see it
Jan Derbyshire’s Certified is pretty much perfect. And how often do I get to say that? Certified is about Derbyshire’s journey with mental illness and mental health, but it’s not one of those stories that collapse into the horrors of madness. Derbyshire allows herself...
Frankenstein, Lost in Darkness: waiting to be found at Pacific Theatre
Taking in Frankenstein: Lost in Darkness is very much like sitting around a fire on a winter evening and listening to a storyteller who is very good — if a little long-winded. Peter Church has adapted Mary Shelley’s novel as a staged radio play and it’s full of foley...
China Doll: Could I get some dramatic tension with that?
Oh man, why do such poorly written plays get produced? Yes, Marjorie Chan’s China Doll is admirably feminist and admirably inclusive of underrepresented experience, but it’s also boring. Chan starts her story in Shanghai in 1904, when her central character, Su-Ling,...
Take d Milk, Nah?: Yeah, take d milk
I've been so bored in the theatre so often lately that I’ve been starting to wonder if I’m dead inside. That’s why I’m feeling so high right now: Take d Milk, Nah? kept me consistently stimulated and engaged. From the get-go, solo performer Jivesh Parasram is Mr....
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