Theatre review: [BLANK]

The Donald and Margot Warehouse’s association with women’s prisons continues into Michael Longhurst’s regime as Clean Break, the company that works with women who’ve been through the Criminal Justice System in some capacity, celebrates its 40th anniversary with a kind of kaleidoscope of their experiences. Alice Birch’s [BLANK] is described as a “theatrical provocation” which, as written, is too long to be staged – the idea is that a director is challenged to choose from 100 scenes with unnamed characters, to construct a performance from it and in many cases decide on the characters’ genders and relationships. Maria Aberg is the director given the task, and she opts for an all-female cast, giving all the characters the first name (and in some cases last name) of their actor, and weaving a story consisting of several short, sometimes connected scenes, with one much longer one as the centrepiece.

Theatre review: Little Shop of Horrors

Last seen in London in 2007, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's Little Shop of Horrors is the Open Air Theatre's main musical offering of this summer, and if it hadn't already been a must-see for me the fact that Maria Aberg is directing definitely would have tipped the scale. And although everything that's fun about the show remains, there's certain directorial touches - and one casting choice in particular - that really make the production feel like it's been looked at with fresh eyes. The 1982 musical is based on a 1960 Roger Corman B-movie, a fact nodded at by Tom Scutt's design making the stage a drive-in cinema; but as the story's set on Skid Row and everything's run down, this drive-in is long-since closed and derelict, everything is grey and lifeless, and the scenery is wheeled on and off stage in shopping trolleys.

Theatre review: The Duchess of Malfi

The Duchess of Malfi won't let any man decide who she can or can't marry; as played by Joan Iyiola at the RSC, this seems to include her prospective husband, who doesn't entirely get a say in her decision to pursue their dangerous love affair. In Maria Aberg's interpretation of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi it's this strong will and independence, rather than the social inequality of the match, that is her downfall. The widowed Duchess' brothers, the unhinged Ferdinand (Alexander Cobb) and lecherous Cardinal (Chris New) advise her against remarrying, largely because they think if she dies without heirs they might inherit her wealth. The Duchess, though, has other ideas, but knowing a marriage between herself and her steward Antonio (Paul Woodson) will cause a scandal she marries him in secret.

Theatre review: Doctor Faustus (RSC / Swan)

There's always at least one play that behaves like a bus, away from the stage a few years then two come along at once; this year it's Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, with two interesting directors taking it on. Up first, Maria Aberg sees Faustus and Mephistophilis as two sides of the same coin, and as such two actors share the roles, who plays whom determined by chance. As the performance opens, the two actors stand opposite each other and light matches. Oliver Ryan's match burned out first, so he was Faustus this afternoon. The scholar has exhausted medicine, the Law and theology, and is yet to find a truth about the world that'll satisfy his curiosity. His last option is to turn to the occult. He conjures the demon Mephistophilis (Sandy Grierson,) and sells his soul to hell.

Theatre review: Wildefire

Constable Gail Wilde (Lorraine Stanley) was a minor character in a Roy Williams play, who the playwright decided he'd like to see as the central figure in her own right. The result is Wildefire, which premieres in the main house as part of Hampstead's police-themed season that also includes State Red Downstairs. Patrolling a quiet town isn't quite fulfilling enough for Wilde, who at the start of the play transfers to the Metropolitan Police. With stories of her grandfather making a real difference on the same beat, she stays cheerfully optimistic in the face of cynicism from her partner Spence (Ricky Champ,) who keeps an unauthorised informant (Eric Kofi Abrefa) out of his own pocket, and isn't above outbreaks of violence. When things become personal, though, Wilde finds that the pressure soon leads her to even greater extremes than Spence.

Theatre review: The White Devil

After providing highlights of the last two RSC seasons with King John and As You Like It, this year's outing for director Maria Aberg was a show to look forward to, but John Webster can be tricky. And The White Devil is a typically convoluted plot: The setting is Rome, where recently-arrived duke Bracciano (David Sturzaker) soon lusts after Vittoria (Kirsty Bushell,) but she's already married to the poor Camillo. With Vittoria's sister Flaminio (Laura Elphinstone) acting as her sister's pimp, Bracciano tries to get Camillo (Keir Charles) out of the way so he can bed his wife. But he soon wants a more permanent solution both for Camillo, and for his own wife Isabella (Faye Castelow.) When they are both found murdered, Vittoria's adultery means she's also trageted as the killer, and a show-trial follows. The lovers manage to flee Rome and get married, but there are people who want revenge for their former spouses' deaths.

Theatre review: Hotel

Polly Stenham, the poet laureate of incontinence, has written a loose trilogy of plays Upstairs at the Royal Court, which have seen her prove accomplished at taking on the dysfunction of the upper middle classes; although by the third there were calls for her to broaden her horizons. She does so, not altogether successfully, with her fourth play Hotel, which also sees her move to the Artist Formerly Known As Shed outside the NT. Vivienne (Hermione Gulliford) is a Cabinet Minister - or at least she was until a couple of days ago. Her husband Robert (Tom Beard) was caught trying to pick up women online, and when the ensuing scandal made them a laughing stock, Vivienne resigned. Now, to escape the press, she's taken Robert and their children Ralph (Tom Rhys Harries) and Frankie (Shannon Tarbet) to the most remote holiday destination they could find, a small tropical island off the coast of Africa. It's the off-season, so theirs seems to be the only occupied suite in the hotel.

Theatre review: As You Like It (RSC / RST & TR Newcastle)

From a Shakespeare play that's new to me to one I'm very familiar with, As You Like It having been the first Shakespeare comedy I saw on stage in 1989, and the one that made me realise their humour can still work today. Accordingly it's also a play I can be very particular about, and have been known to get stroppy if I think it's been poorly served by the production. This year's RSC offering though comes with a promising pedigree: Maria Aberg directed my favourite Shakespeare of 2012, King John, and here she reunites with its leads, Pippa Nixon and Alex Waldmann, to take on Rosalind and Orlando. Rosalind's father, the Duke Senior, has been deposed and exiled by his younger brother Frederick. When she spots the mistreated young nobleman Orlando de Boys winning a wrestling match, he and Rosalind fall in love. Shortly afterwards they're banished, separately, to the forest, and by the time they meet again Rosalind is disguised as a boy - a subterfuge she now uses to test and toy with her lover.

Theatre review: King John (RSC / Swan)

When you go to as much theatre as I do, certain Shakespeare plays do keep cropping up. Two Lears in a year wouldn't be that unusual but two King Johns? I was excited when the RSC's new one at the Swan was announced last year, and booked straight away, even paying a bit extra for a front row seat since it's such a rarity (at the time I'd last seen it a decade ago.) Since booking, a smaller-scale production appeared much closer to home, so this is now my second King John of 2012. But even if the play's not quite Hamlet it still rewards getting to know it better, and this turns out to be a show well worth making the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon for.