Theatre review: King Lear (Shakespeare's Globe)

Female King Lears have become a bit more common in recent years, but Kathryn Hunter's 1997 performance of the role is generally referred to as the first-ever professional production with a woman in the lead. Presumably it was also remarkable for her age, as she would have been younger then than I am now, and much as I grumble about getting on a bit I'm not quite at the point of identifying with the dementia-stricken monarch just yet. This was long before I'd ever even heard of Hunter, now one of my favourite actors, so I was excited to have a chance to finally see her in the role, 25 years closer to the character's supposed age, at Shakespeare's Globe. But it's turned out to be a troubled production: Hunter was meant to reunite onstage for the second time this year with her husband Marcello Magni, but he had to drop out so we get a much younger Kent, with an appealing amount of swagger, in Gabriel Akuwudike.

Theatre review: The Chairs

A rare appearance for Eugène Ionesco's absurdist work in a major London production - only the second in the decade I've been writing this blog - also features a more regular sight as Kathryn Hunter appears with husband and regular collaborator Marcello Magni in the first of two planned productions this year. At the Almeida Omar Elerian directs his own adaptation of Ionesco's The Chairs, and for the second show in a row here a revival gives an opportunity to address very modern concerns about climate change, as an impossibly elderly couple watch the world flood outside their windows, and remember a time when everything seemed brighter. But the Old Man (Magni) has a plan: He's been a janitor, or Master of the Mop and Bucket, all his life, but in his spare time he's been preparing and perfecting a speech that holds all the solutions to the world's problems. He doesn't feel able to deliver the message in front of an audience himself, but fortunately he's found a professional Speaker who can do it..

Theatre review: Timon of Athens (RSC / Swan)

With its story of economic inequality and social unrest - in Greece no less - Timon of Athens seems like a play that would have attracted a lot of revivals in recent years, but the fragmentary nature of the text means Shakespeare and Middleton's tragedy remains as obscure a part of the canon as ever. Its obligatory appearance in the "T" season as part of the RSC's complete works is only the third time I've seen it, and marks one of the few occasions when the company's departed from their current policy of staging all the Shakespeares in the main house, presumably figuring the Swan would be easier to fill. But if the play's obscure the casting is, to me at least, a definite draw, with Kathryn Hunter taking on the title role. Timon has a seemingly infinite belief in the goodness of humanity, as she has more friends than any other woman in Athens. Of course, she's also one of the richest, and famously generous.

Theatre review: The Emperor

There's people with a mixed reputation, and then there's Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia for half of the Twentieth Century. Depending on who you ask he was everything from a narcissistic dictator who watched his people starve to death while he lived in luxury, to the literal Second Coming, with the religion built around him - Rastafarianism - still thriving to this day (plus he seems perfectly nice on Bake Off.) If there was any doubt that the subject's a controversial one you could add the lone protestor outside the Young Vic tonight, with placards calling Ryszard Kapuściński's book The Emperor "literary colonialism." The book is adapted for the stage by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann, reuniting Kathryn Hunter with the team behind her tour-de-force Kafka's Monkey.

Theatre review: The Valley of Astonishment

I'm always excited by the prospect of seeing Kathryn Hunter, one of the most extraordinary actors alive, on stage, so to see her in something distinctly underwhelming is more than a little disappointing. How much more so when legendary director Peter Brook and his regular collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne have chosen what should be an endlessly fascinating subject matter: In The Valley of Astonishment, Hunter plays Sammy Costas, a 44-year-old woman whose photographic memory excites scientists. Mrs Costas, it transpires, has synaesthesia, the condition that muddles the responses of the senses. So words can have a colour, numbers a taste, sounds a personality. It means everything she sees or hears automatically becomes part of a mental landscape she carries with her, and every memory can be easily recovered.

Theatre review: My Perfect Mind

At about the same time that Ian McKellen was due to arrive in New Zealand with the RSC's King Lear, a much smaller local company was rehearsing a rival production. They had also recruited an English actor to play Lear, but Edward Petherbridge's hopes of giving McKellen a run for his money were crushed when he suffered a debilitating stroke a couple of days into rehearsals. Petherbridge recovered well enough to be back on stage a few years later in the disastrous musical The Fantasticks, where he co-starred with Paul Hunter and told him of his wish to attempt the role again, as a one-man show. Instead, the pair teamed up to create My Perfect Mind, a hectic look at Petherbridge, Lear, and how the stroke bound the two together, the character's lines surviving in the actor's memory even as the simplest daily tasks became impossible.

Theatre review: Mare Rider

After several failed attempts to have a baby, Selma (Anna Francolini) has had a difficult birth, and is now recovering in Homerton Hospital in Hackney. Spending much of her time asleep or sedated, her dreams are invaded by a nightmare figure from Turkish mythology, Elka the Mare Rider (Kathryn Hunter.) Elka is a millennia-old woman who haunts new mothers if they're not constantly attended, eventually taking the baby's life or - in exceptional circumstances - the mother can bargain with her to take her own. In Mare Rider Leyla Nazli brings a modern woman who's left it quite late to try for a baby, face to face with an ancient creature who doesn't think that much has changed for women since the days her legend was born.

Theatre review: A Tender Thing

Of all the former Ensemble^TM members who might have made a speedy return to the RSC, I would have put Kathryn Hunter at the bottom of the list after her very public resignation from both that season and her position as an RSC Associate. But return she has, and as she's one of those actors whose performances are always worth catching if at all possible, A Tender Thing saw me make a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon for a show that's not even as long as the train trip each way.

Apparently the question "what would have happened if Romeo and Juliet had lived and grown older" is one that continues to haunt writers and actors. (I don't know why, the answer is "they'd have broken up within a fortnight." Oh shush, you know they would.) Ben Power doesn't quite attempt to answer this question: Instead he creates a new Romeo and Juliet out of the original words of Shakespeare's play.

Theatre review: The Bee

If you've been reading my reviews since they were on the other blog, you'll know I'm a fan of Kathryn Hunter. Last year I introduced Andy to the revival of Kafka's Monkey, and that made him keen to catch her future work as well. Hunter often seems happy to to revisit earlier work and so it is with Hideki Noda and Colin Teevan's The Bee, which she first appeared in in 2006, and which is now on an international tour. She plays Mr Ido, a Tokyo salaryman who one day in 1974 returns home from work to find police and reporters surrounding his house - an escaped murderer has taken his wife and son hostage. Ido's response is to take the kindapper's own wife and child hostage. This stalemate is the heart of the play.

Glyn Pritchard, Clive Mendus and Hideki Noda play all the other characters in this pitch-black comedy that uses both physicality and creative use of props to tell its story - amusing uses are found for rubber bands, and you know the actors are doing something right when snapping a pencil causes audience members to flinch. Hunter is well matched by the other performers - Noda as the kidnapper's wife is particularly haunting as the character gradually succumbs to shock, and his face goes eerily blank. With a lot of fun humour early on (as far as I can tell the 1970s setting is largely so we get a couple of gags about people being inordinately impressed by calculators and cars with electric windows) it's not just the setting that's Japanese but the particular brand of oddity, Miriam Buether's set adding to the cartoon feel. This sense of the surreal is still in evidence as the subject matter gets increasingly bleaker.

Thematically the show covers a lot of ground, from the media, to the central theme of extreme circumstances pushing a seemingly normal man into horrific actions, and later the play takes in a bit of twisted satire on domestic routine - Andy also interpreted parts of it as commentary on tit-for-tat retaliations in warfare. This scattergun approach to its targets may be one reason I found myself at more of an emotional distance than I expected; the cleverness of the performances is probably something else that you admire rather than being hooked in by. Though I suspect the only reason I noticed this is because previous shows starring Kathryn Hunter have always tugged at the heartstrings with seeming ease, so I noticed the contrast. This is more of an intellectually stimulating show, and while it's star's physical skills and easy empathy are in evidence, her ability to turn from comedy to tragedy and back is the acting muscle getting most exercise here.

The Bee by Hideki Noda and Colin Teevan is booking until the 11th of February at Soho Theatre; then continuing on tour to Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes straight through.