Little Eagles, Hampstead Theatre | reviews, news & interviews
Little Eagles, Hampstead Theatre
Little Eagles, Hampstead Theatre
Rona Munro’s play about Soviet cosmonauts is too long and unfocused to lift off
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Reach for the sky: Darrell D’Silva as Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov in ‘Little Eagles’Hugo Glendinning
Space is a great subject for theatre. I’m not sure why but it might be something to do with the contrast between the irreducible groundedness of live performance and the imaginary flights of fancy that the audience yearns to take. Whatever the reason, memorable past explorations of this subject, from the Soviet side of the space race, include Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon and David Greig’s The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union. Now Rona Munro, whose new play opened last night, once again boldly goes deep into the history behind the first man in space.
Space is a great subject for theatre. I’m not sure why but it might be something to do with the contrast between the irreducible groundedness of live performance and the imaginary flights of fancy that the audience yearns to take. Whatever the reason, memorable past explorations of this subject, from the Soviet side of the space race, include Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon and David Greig’s The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union. Now Rona Munro, whose new play opened last night, once again boldly goes deep into the history behind the first man in space.
Yes, the play is a mess, a three-hour-long trek in whose more tedious moments you long for the dramaturg’s sharp scissors
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