Theatre review: Alterations

When Indhu Rubasingham took over what was then the Tricycle, her first step was to ask audiences what they did and didn't like about the theatre, and responded with the practical changes people asked for. She'll be officially taking over at the National soon, so if she wants any early suggestions for the new gig might I recommend some new padding for the seats in the two main houses? Or if they can't afford that just yet, maybe no more 2hr+ shows without interval until they can? I genuinely don't know to what extent I felt lukewarm about Alterations, and to what extent I just spent half of it in pain from a seat that doesn't seem to have been reupholstered since Michael Abbensetts' play was brand-new. That would be 1978, and the story plays out over 48 hours in a Carnaby Street tailor's shop in September of the previous year (going by the prop newpaper announcing the death of Marc Bolan.)

Theatre review: Rockets and Blue Lights

Winsome Pinnock's Rockets and Blue Lights takes its title from a JMW Turner painting, but its subject revolves around a different one of the painter's seascapes, unveiled in the same year and possibly a kind of companion piece: Best-known as The Slave Ship, it shows the aftermath of a slave ship (possibly the Zong) jettisoning its human "cargo" in a storm. It was part of the backlash against slavery that led to abolition in British territories, and the painting and its ambiguities - is Turner's not showing the bodies of the victims letting the viewer off the hook, or forcing them to imagine horrors he can't satisfactorily put to canvas? - becomes a recurring symbol, and a starting-off point for trying to reframe the narrative: Instead of making abolition a cause for self-congratulation, looking at the legacy of slavery both at the time and down the generations.

Theatre review: Our Town

Our Town is American theatre's archetypal metatheatrical play, and for anyone not sure what that means Ellen McDougall's staging provides a pretty strong hint: Rosie Elnile's set puts a miniature version of the Open Air Theatre's seating banks on the stage, reflecting the audience's place back at them. It's an inspired setting for a story that's so much about people sitting back and observing life, although that significance isn't revealed until late. For the first two acts Thornton Wilder's play is pointedly about the everyday as it follows life in the 1900s and early 1910s in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. In particular two families - that of Dr (Karl Collins) and Mrs Gibbs (Pandora Colin) and their next-door neighbours, local newspaper editor Mr Webb (Tom Edden) and his wife (Thusitha Jayasundera.) Narrated by the Stage Manager (Laura Rogers,) the first act follows a decidedly ordinary day.

Theatre review: Chimerica

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I really don't remember booking a preview performance for this, but think the press night might have been brought back after I booked; it's now next week.

Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica opens at the Almeida complete with three cast members (Benedict Wong, Andrew Leung and David Tse) from Hampstead's just-ended #aiww¹, and like that play it looks at the rise of China and how the ruling party treats those who don't toe the line. But as the title suggests this time there's two nations being thrown together, and at the heart of Kirkwood's new play is the relationship between China and America, and how the two nations view each other. Spanning 23 years over two continents, and coming in at over three hours, this is an epic in more ways than one. Set during last year's US Presidential election campaign, the action is haunted by the deaths of protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and especially by that day's best-known image of a lone man standing in front of a row of advancing tanks.

Theatre review: One Monkey Don't Stop No Show

A middle-class black family in Philadelphia get their lives shaken up when a smart-talking niece from the country comes to live with them. If the basic premise of Don Evans' 1982 play One Monkey Don't Stop No Show has echoes of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, it's a similarity director Dawn Walton has obviously spotted as well: For the play's UK debut (which toured last year and now starts a second leg at the Tricycle) she's framed it as a 1970s/'80s US sitcom, complete with "ON AIR" announcement, jaunty theme tune and a canned audience cheering the arrival of every new character on stage (although fortunately the laughs come from the real audience.) It's an innovative approach that at times stifles some of the satirical intent behind Evans' comedy but, aided by some game performances, for the most part it gets away with it.