tragedy
Elektra, Salzburg Festival, Arte review - distancing, but not in the physical senseTuesday, 04 August 2020
So much for the assertion that nowhere in the world would be staging the big Strauss and Wagner operas for the indefinite future. With a combination of lavish funding and good pandemic management on Austria's part, it’s been possible in Salzburg.... Read more... |
Theatre Unlocked 2: A starry premiere and musical revival alongside Greek tragedy where it beganThursday, 23 July 2020
Theatres will begin gently unlocking their doors as we head into August. In the meantime, a beleaguered community continues to find fresh and startling ways to sustain interest and excitement, whether that be the premiere of a new play starring... Read more... |
Blueprint Medea, Finborough Theatre online review – well-meaning but clunky updateThursday, 16 July 2020
Medea is the original crazy ex-girlfriend: the wronged woman who takes perfectly understandable revenge on the man who made her life hell. In Blueprint Medea, a new adaptation premiered at the Finborough Theatre in May 2019 and available on YouTube... Read more... |
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld: The Discomfort of Evening review - lovelessness, loneliness, bodies and their limitsSunday, 03 May 2020
“I was ten and stopped taking off my coat.” This bare beginning marks the opening of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s startling and lyrical novel, translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison: an introduction to ten-year-old Jas and the dislocated world... Read more... |
Women Beware Women, Shakespeare's Globe, review – wittily toxic upgrade of a Jacobean tragedyFriday, 28 February 2020
This raunchy, gleefully cynical production takes one of Thomas Middleton’s most famous tragedies and turns it into a Netflix-worthy dark comedy. Where the themes of incest, betrayal, cougar-action and multiple murder would be spun out over several... Read more... |
The Accident, Series Finale, Channel 4 review - ambitious mini-series leaves many unanswered questionsFriday, 15 November 2019
Channel 4’s The Accident closed with a bang and a whimper. Jack Thorne provided a definitive answer to his series’ central question, but his characters and subplots petered out in the meantime.Over four episodes, this series examined the fallout of... Read more... |
Medea, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Barbican review - lacerating contemporary tragedyThursday, 07 March 2019
Hallucinatory theatre has struck quite a few times in the Barbican's international seasons. On an epic scale we’ve had the Shakespeare compendiums Kings of War and Roman Tragedies from Toneelgroep Amsterdam, newly merged with the city's... Read more... |
The Son, Kiln Theatre review - darkly tragicThursday, 28 February 2019
Well, you have to give it to French playwright Florian Zeller — he's certainly cracked the problem of coming up with a name for each of his plays. Basically, choose a common noun and put the definite article in front of it. His latest, The Son, is... Read more... |
Gianni Schicchi/Suor Angelica, RNCM, Manchester review – music does the magicWednesday, 12 December 2018
The Royal Northern College of Music’s December opera production was the useful double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi from Puccini’s Trittico. I say useful, because the former employs a women’s chorus (and, briefly, a full one) plus 16... Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera review - a timely revival of Verdi's political music-dramaFriday, 16 November 2018
Political machinations and backroom power-brokering, leadership battles and unscrupulous rivals – if ever there was an opera for this week it’s Simon Boccanegra. Premiered in 1857 but only coming into its own after substantial revisions in 1881,... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Barbican review - plenty of action but not enough wordsWednesday, 07 November 2018
It’s clear from the start – from a Prologue that quickly dissolves familiar rhythms and words into a Babel of clamour and sound. This RSC Romeo and Juliet, newly transferred to the Barbican, isn’t much interested in what is said. Actions not words... Read more... |
Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre review - Ralph Fiennes in marvellous throttleThursday, 27 September 2018
You always wonder about those final scenes of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Are they really needed dramatically; do they work? We understand, of course, that a closing exhalation may add impact to high passions just witnessed. But is it just a romantic... Read more... |
