Theatre review: Snow in Midsummer

A few years ago the RSC got caught up in a controversy over not casting enough British East Asian actors in classic Chinese play The Orphan of Zhao - a controversy that now looks very minor compared to the recent Print Room shitshow - but they now seem to be trying to make amends with a new ongoing project of translations of classical Chinese theatre. Of course the RSC's tendency to announce instantly-forgotten projects is notorious - how's that plan to stage the Shakespeare canon in the RST in 5 6 8 years with no repeats going? - but if the opening production is any indication, we have to hope this one has legs. Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's Snow in Midsummer is a free adaptation of a 13th century classic, Guan Hanqing's The Injustice to Dou E That Moved Heaven and Earth.

Theatre review: Shangri-La

Amy Ng's debut play is named Shangri-La after an imaginary place - or at least one that used to be imaginary, until an area of Tibet was renamed after the Capra film Lost Horizon's setting, in a canny grab for tourist dollars. In a play that jumps between two periods in the life of Bunny (Julia Sandiford,) the real Shangri-La is where she lives in 2001, the 14-year-old daughter of a shaman who runs a failing guest house. An encounter with an Irish photographer gives Bunny the seeds of a love of photography that'll endure into adulthood; but it also leads to an event that'll make her loath to return to the Himalayas when we meet her as an adult in 2014, working as a guide for an ethical travel company in Beijing.

Theatre review: #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei

It was only a matter of time before a play came along with a hashtag in the title. At least it's appropriately on-theme in #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, as the artist's criticism of the state on blogs and Twitter are at the heart of how he offended the Chinese government. But any admission of this is a long time coming, as Howard Brenton's play is a study in disinformation, trumped-up charges and fabrication as a series of officials try to break his spirit. Ai Weiwei (Benedict Wong,) an artist and architect who designed the Bird's Nest Stadium, was attempting to fly to Hong Kong for an exhibition two years ago when he was arrested at the airport. He would spend 81 days detained and ordered to confess to any number of vaguely-defined crimes, before being released to house arrest on a charge of tax avoidance.