Theatre review: The Treatment

The latest Almeida season opens with Martin Crimp's 1993 play The Treatment - "treatment" as in the summary of a movie pitch, as well as the way people treat each other. Anne (Aisling Loftus) is describing a difficult life, culminating in her marriage: Kept in a small apartment she never leaves, her husband would sometimes tie and gag her, not to abuse her physically but to give lengthy speeches, waxing lyrical about car parks and strip lights. She's telling her story to Jennifer (Indira Varma) and Andrew (Julian Ovenden,) married as well as being producing partners, and interested in developing her story. They bring in down-and-out playwright Clifford (Ian Gelder) to script it, and bombastic actor John (Gary Beadle) to play the husband, as well as to provide some star wattage that'll attract investors.

Theatre review: Sunset Baby

Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby is the final play in Christopher Haydon's inaugural season at the Gate, entitled "RESIST!" and looking at revolutions and the people behind them. But it also seems to me a good bridge to the already-announced next season, themed around "Aftermath," as it looks at how the crucial figures in an uprising deal with the rest of their lives when the fight that defined them no longer takes up their whole lives - especially where it leaves their family relationships. Ashanti X was a leading figure in the Black Power movement, but she died a crack addict. Her daughter Nina (Michelle Asante) is a drug dealer and thief whose only legacy from her mother is a collection of letters she wrote to Nina's father Kenyatta after he left them, but never posted. Now Kenyatta (Ben Onwukwe) has returned to claim the letters.