Rehearsed reading review: Girl on an Altar

Alongside the more finished works that have been appearing online during the last year of lockdown, it's perhaps surprising that more rehearsed readings haven't also been on the menu - perhaps theatres have been too busy trying to ensure they can eventually reopen their doors, to spend much time trying out the shows they hope to put on when they do. But if the latest in a long line of promises actually turns out true there might be light at the end of the tunnel, and Marina Carr’s new play Girl on an Altar is one Indhu Rubasingham hopes to add to a future Kiln season. So she and Susie McKenna direct a one-off reading that was live-streamed tonight from the Kiln stage, and in a companion piece to her Hecuba, Carr returns to the aftereffects of the Trojan War to look at the Greek side of the story. The play focuses on the first major murder of the Oresteia, but like Robert Icke she first looks back ten years to the inciting event: The sacrifice of Iphigenia.

Theatre review: Richard II(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The professional reviews for Richard II don't appear to be in yet.

It'll get overtaken by the ubiquitous Midsummer Night's Dream later in the year, but for the moment Richard II is the Shakespeare play everyone wants a piece of. It's unsurprising given the grim topicality of John of Gaunt's speech, but at Michelle Terry's theatres it's also meant as the kicking-off point for the entire eight-play History cycle to be produced over the next year. Not that Lynette Linton and Adjoa Andoh's production doesn't stand on its own, being notable for its all-women of colour cast and company. The Swanamaker is currently also playing the story of how the title character's great-grandfather took his crown for granted and ended up losing it, but Richard (Andoh) isn't really one to learn lessons from the past and, having ascended to the throne at the age of three, assumes the god-given nature of his power means no mere human would dare to challenge it.

Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida (RSC / RST)

The thing about committing to doing the entire works of Shakespeare with no repetition is that at some point you have to knuckle down and do Troilus and Cressida. If you're the RSC you've also got the added pressure of hoping it doesn't get overshadowed by the memory of the last time you attempted it. Artistic Director Gregory Doran has taken the job on himself with a bombastic production that plays a few weeks in the middle of the "T" season, the high concept being that designer Niki Turner has taken inspiration from Mad Max (presumably the Tom Hardy rather than Mel Gibson version, as Agamemnon doesn't take time out to blame the Jews for the Trojan War) and composers Evelyn Glennie and Dave Price have created a cacophonous, percussion-heavy soundtrack that's meant to evoke the noise of a war dragging on indefinitely in the background. It's a clanging, crashing noise that Troilus (Gavin Fowler) is not so much haunted as irritated by after seven years of siege.

Theatre review: Julius Caesar (Bridge Theatre)

Nicholas Hytner’s Bridge Theatre is intended to predominantly showcase new writing, but in only his second production there Hytner can’t resist going back to Shakespeare. This is in part because the opening season is also meant to show off the flexibility of the auditorium, and Julius Caesar is a play that lends itself to promenade staging, or in this case in-the-round staging with a section of the audience in promenade (of sorts.) Making the audience part of the action fills in the play’s reliance on crowds – whether as baying mobs, horrified onlookers, armies or, most crucially, the general populace of Rome in whose name the central characters act. Hytner’s production is modern dress, and David Calder’s Julius Caesar certainly has a visual nod to one current political figure as he shuffles onto the stage wearing a red baseball cap and revelling in the attention as much as anything.

Theatre review: Assata Taught Me

It must surely be time for Ellen McDougall to announce her first shows as Artistic Director of the Gate, and if there's one thing I hope she carries on from her predecessor's run - apart from the overall quality, but you'd hope she's aiming for that anyway - it's the short and snappy running times. After the epic run of last night's show I was looking forward to something more concise, and Christopher Haydon's final piece of programming provides it. Kalungi Ssebandeke's debut play Assata Taught Me is short, sharp and sometimes even sweet, imagining what life might be like as one of the world's most-wanted women. Assata Shakur was a high-profile Black Panther, imprisoned for killing a policeman; she escaped and fled to Cuba where she's been ever since, but she remains on the FBI's Most Wanted list, with a $2 million bounty on her head. So, at least as Ssebandeke imagines her, she's free but always has to stay on the alert.

Theatre review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

I don't know how dangerous she is, but this Lesley Aisons certainly seems like a bit of a cow.

Based on the novel by Choderlos de Laclos, Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses is still best known for its hit film adaptation*, but enough time has passed to bring it back to the stage, as Josie Rourke does at the Donmar. In 18th century France, the nobility's reputations depend on them maintaining a strict morality - or at least appearing to, while getting up to whatever they like behind closed doors. Men can get away with more than women, so the Vicomte de Valmont (Dominic West,) despite something of a caddish reputation, is still welcome in polite society because of his charm and the frisson of scandal. Not only are the rumours about his sexual conquests true, he has an unsuspected accomplice in the outwardly respectable widow, the Marquise de Merteuil (Janet McTeer.) The two were once lovers, but have left that behind to focus on corrupting others: They dare and egg each other on to find the most virtuous young nobles in Paris society, seduce then discard them.

Theatre review: A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes

Last year Marcus Gardley took loose inspiration from Lorca's bleak The House of Bernarda Alba, to create the serious but hugely entertaining House That Will Not Stand. So I was very much looking forward to him teaming up with director Indhu Rubasingham again for a play based on a much lighter source: A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes is an adaptation of Molière’s satirical farce Tartuffe. The play could also be seen as a comic companion piece to Lucas Hnath's The Christians, as both playwrights are the sons of preachers in American megachurches, and that's where they've set their stories. But unlike Hnath's successful church, Gardley's play takes place in one that's hardly thriving: Tardimus Toof (Lucian Msamati) is the self-styled Apostle whose apparently successful healing of the sick isn't drawing in any cash - although it does give him the chance to hit on the young women he heals, much to the fury of his wife.

Theatre review: Julius Caesar (RSC / RST, Noël Coward Theatre & tour)

Though I've seen the odd good production, Julius Caesar has never been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. There's an awful lot of surreptitious plotting, and for years all attempts to get away from the play's togas-and-sandals image seemed to turn the conspirators into identikit business-suited politicians. In recent years slightly more diverse interpretations seem to have been given a chance again, and Gregory Doran, in his penultimate RSC show as Chief Associate before he officially takes over as Artistic Director, turns Rome into a turbulent African nation. The set is a town square whose concrete seems to have had some bomb damage, overshadowed by a huge statue of Caesar. A community chorus has been enlisted to help fill the stage, and as we enter the party is in full swing, celebrating his victory over Pompey.