Theatre review: The Sweet Science of Bruising

I don't think we can really call it a 2018 meme when it's so obviously a timely and appropriate response to a conversation going on everywhere, and particularly in the arts, but there's certainly been an explosion this year of shows by and about women: Particularly ones like Emilia, Sylvia and, just ending its run in the space next door to this one, Wasted, that illuminate the present through the women who've fought against society's expectations in the past. That fight is literal in Joy Wilkinson's The Sweet Science of Bruising: Her subject is Victorian women's boxing, her heroines four women from very different backgrounds who all find themselves fighting for a newly-invented world championship title when London boxing promoter Professor Charlie Sharp (Bruce Alexander) travels to Manchester in search of new talent, and discovers that promising fighter Paul Stokes (James Baxter) has a girlfriend, Polly (Fiona Skinner,) who's every bit as good if not more so.

Theatre review: Bad Jews

It's not a subtle title, but then Bad Jews isn't a subtle play. Joshua Harmon's story of warring cousins is, though, rather a clever one. On the night after their grandfather's funeral Daphna (Jenna Augen) is sharing a studio apartment with her quiet cousin Jonah (Joe Coen,) and spends much of the time railing against Jonah's older brother Liam, who missed the funeral, and whom she's long had a feud with. When Liam (Ilan Goodman) finally does arrive, it's with his gentile girlfriend Melody (Gina Bramhill) in tow, a fact that only infuriates Daphna more. Daphna is very vocal about her religious beliefs, planning to become a rabbi and move to Israel, so she takes Liam's atheism and shiksa girlfriend as personal affronts. Sparks fly as soon as the cousins are reunited, and while religion is the opening salvo, when a treasured family heirloom comes into the discussion things soon get personal.