Theatre review: The Comeuppance

Like Appropriate, the last Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play I saw, The Comeuppance also takes a mainstay of American storytelling and gives it a gentle but noticeable tweak. This time it's the high school reunion, and the triumphs and disappointments that hang over people meeting again after years apart. Although in this case the people we meet have stayed in touch to varying degrees, and not just because these reunions have been happening every five years - the upcoming 20th anniversary is the first one successful artist Emilio (Anthony Welsh) has actually returned for, which may be part of the reason his old friendship group have decided to meet for a pre-reunion reunion. They meet on the porch of Ursula's (Tamara Lawrance) house: Having lost the grandmother who raised her and the sight in one eye in quick succession, Ursula has become somewhat reclusive, and isn't planning on following the others to the party itself.

Theatre review: A Strange Loop

A Strange Loop comes to the Barbican bearing a Pulitzer, but it's OK - once every few years they give it to something that isn't just the first thing to ham-fistedly tackle whatever the controversial hot topic of the day is. Michael R. Jackson's musical does make a point of the fact that intersectionality is something all the stage producers are looking to capitalise on at the moment, but at least it does it in as knowingly tongue-in-cheek a way as it does most other things. The intersection in question is that between black and queer lives, as seen through Usher (Kyle Ramar Freeman,) an usher at the Broadway production of The Lion King who's trying to write a musical in his spare time. The title has a couple of highbrow origin references but essentially it's about the structure: A musical about a gay black man writing a musical about a gay black man writing a musical about a gay black man.