Theatre review: Faustus: That Damned Woman

The last time Christopher Marlowe's version of the Doctor Faustus story was seen in London, the Swanamaker cast a female lead to take the journey through knowledge to damnation, but the text remained the same one written by and for a man. For Headlong's production, which opens its tour at the Lyric Hammersmith, a new playwright takes a crack at the old story, retelling it to ask what would make a woman sell her soul in Chris Bush's Faustus: That Damned Woman. Revenge turns out to be the answer, at least as the initial spur, when in 1666 London Johanna Faustus (Jodie McNee) is obsessed with finding out the truth about her mother, who was hanged as a witch. The charge was that she signed her name in Lucifer's book of souls, and Faustus is determined to find out if this was true, even if she has to summon the devil himself to ask him. Lucifer (Barnaby Power) agrees to let her read his book, but only if she signs her own name first and damns herself.

Theatre review: All's Well That Ends Well (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Caroline Byrne would appear to be the director the Globe turns to when they've got a problem play that needs solving; she previously had to deal with the alleged comedy of The Taming of the Shrew, and now comes indooors to the Swanamaker for a play that belies its title of All's Well That Ends Well. Byrne's production includes the unusual credit of Ben Ormerod as "candle consultant," and perhaps the consultation was over how few candles they could get away with in the playhouse - only two of the chandeliers get lit, and then only for a single scene, with a few small candelabras and handheld candles doing all the work of lighting the action. Fortunately things aren't so murky that it becomes difficult to see what's going on, but they are murky enough to take us into the slightly nightmarish world the play's two leads find themselves in.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

This year is the centenary of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, the setting Caroline Byrne has chosen for her production of The Taming of the Shrew; it's the only reason I can see for a season with a "Wonder" theme to include a play that's short of that quality on pretty much every front. Byrne's all-Irish cast are led by Aoife Duffin as Katherine, the eldest daughter of wealthy Padua merchant Baptista Minola (Gary Lilburn,) notorious for her violent temper. Her younger sister Bianca (Genevieve Hulme-Beaman,) on the other hand, is famed for both beauty and a pleasant personality and has numerous suitors, but they'll all have to wait as Baptista has decided that a husband has to be found for the elder daughter first. The suitors need someone to take that bullet and Petruchio (Edward MacLiam) sees her hefty dowry as reason enough to take her on.

Theatre review: Fuck the Polar Bears

I guess this year's "plays with Fuck in the title" meme has well and truly jumped the shark, because after a couple of strong entries we now get Tanya Ronder's egregious Fuck the Polar Bears at the Bush. A play about the damage done to the environment by everyday energy usage, it makes its points with all the subtlety of an anvil made of shit. Our heroes are Gordon and Serena, a wealthy middle-aged couple and the worst human beings ever to have existed. Gordon (Andrew Whipp) is the new CEO of an energy company that wants to start fracking; he celebrates his promotion by bringing home six Sloppy Giuseppe pizzas he knows his family will barely pick at*. I think we might be meant to infer he's happy to waste food but it was all a bit subtle for me. His big new wage packet means he and his wife can finally sell their enormous mansion, and move into an even more enormous mansion they like better.

Theatre review: Eclipsed

The second show in London this year to deal with girl soldiers in Liberia's succession of civil wars, Danai Gurira's Eclipsed is the more powerful piece in the way it brings a brutal conflict to a domestic level. While horrors keeps going on outside daily, a fragile, compromised kind of domesticity exists in quarters of a rebel compound, where the warlord's wives live in a strict hierarchy based on the order in which they arrived. The Girl (Letitia Wright) has been hidden away by Helena, aka Wife #1 (Michelle Asante,) but she's soon discovered and enlisted as Wife #4, to be used for sex by the C.O. as he pleases - although at least that means she isn't readily available to the whole camp. While Wife #3, the pregnant Bessie (Joan Iyiola,) is worried that the C.O. no longer wants to have sex with her as often as he used to, however much she adapts to their domestic setup, the Girl can't get used to that.