Theatre review: Rhinoceros

Omar Elerian continues to be a big advocate of Eugène Ionesco's work, returning to the Almeida after The Chairs to adapt and direct Rhinoceros, a play whose wildness, chaos and horrors mirror the real-life situations it satirises. A quiet Sunday in a small village that may or may not be in France is disrupted when a rhinoceros charges through the square, later followed by a second one (or the same one doing a loop.) Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù plays Berenger, who's already got problems with alcohol before the play starts, and is unlikely to find it easier to cope once the rhinos start arriving - particularly as everyone else in town seems to view them as a minor inconvenience at most. But as the week goes on and everyone tries to get back to work, things are further disrupted as it becomes apparent this isn't an incursion of pachiderms from outside: The human residents are, one by one, turning into rhinos.

Theatre review: ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen)

In keeping with his usual theatrical style, originally developed when he was denied a passport and couldn't perform his shows himself, Nassim Soleimanpour uses a different actor as his proxy for every performance, allowing him to have someone make a connection with the audience even if he can't do so in person. Unusually, for his latest play ECHO (Every Cold-Hearted Oxygen) the full schedule of guest stars was revealed in advance, and given there's now a message on the website saying that no, you can't have a free ticket exchange to a different night, the Royal Court might be regretting that as, presumably, they're getting inundated with calls demanding they see Jodie Whittaker or Toby Jones. Tonight's guest National Treasure was Meera Syal, who at least would have had some idea what she was getting herself into as it transpires she's done one of Soleimanpour's previous shows: The playwright was excited as that had been the performance his wife caught, and she'd gushed about Syal's performance.

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

For my second As You Like It of the year (second of a planned three, which in most years would make it the most ubiquitous Shakespeare play, but Macbeth has got plans guys,) Omar Elerian's RSC debut has a high-concept cast: Two of them are former presidents of Equity. Oh, and almost all of them are over 70. The conceit (quite simply delivered in a speech to the audience at the start, something any number of elaborate artistic visions might want to consider,) is that this isn't so much a production of As You Like It as a memory of one, an imagined 1975 production from which all the cast members with any significant amount of lines have conveniently survived, and have reconvened in a rehearsal room to try and recreate. A quartet of younger actors join them to read in the roles of absent friends, as well as to help get the leads back on their feet after any scenes that require particular exertion.

Theatre review: Two Palestinians Go Dogging

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Press Night for this is next week. This may mean the running time issue I mention later in this review may have been improved a bit by then.

The Royal Court isn't afraid to tackle the political issues that most steer clear of, so it's perhaps not entirely surprising that their latest premiere tackles the conflict between Israel and Palestine - from the Palestinian perspective that's generally shied away from, and largely through the medium of black comedy. Sami Ibrahim's Two Palestinians Go Dogging has a title that's meant to sound like the setup to a joke, but we're also assured many times that public sex is literally something its indefatigable leading lady has been known to indulge in; it's also the setting for a couple of unlikely Israeli-Palestinian encounters on a more intimate level. The story begins in 2043, although apart from the fact that the Prime Minister of Israel is the reanimated corpse of Benjamin Netanyahu there's nothing much to differentiate it from 2022.

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: Misty

The only black man on the night bus - describing himself as the virus among blood cells - gets into a quick scuffle with a drunk, and finds the situation escalating until he's on the front of the local papers, being sought as Public Enemy Number One. Arinzé "chest day is his favourite day" Kene's Misty is storytelling theatre crossed with performance art and music gig, but it's also a postmodern deconstruction of itself: Backed by two musicians, Kene performs his own play, following his central character on a journey around a London he's starting not to recognise, written in a mix of poetry, rap and song. It's a familiar story of black Londoners facing discrimination and fighting against the disadvantages they grew up with, and the question is, is it too familiar? Kene bursts the bubble of the atmosphere he's created, stepping back from performer to writer and questioning why he's telling this particular story.

Theatre review: Nassim

Currently previewing at the Bush Studio before officially opening in Edinburgh, Nassim features a format I’m seeing more and more of: A performer who knows as little about the piece going in as the audience does. Nassim Soleimanpour’s play, directed by Omar Elerian and designed by Rhys Jarman, features a new performer every night, and like the Royal Court did with Manwatching, the Bush are releasing a list of the performers in advance, but not revealing who will appear at which performance until it actually begins. The performer - Khalid Abdalla tonight - is confronted with a screen on which flash cards are projected, with the script for him to read out, and instructions for him – and occasionally the audience – to carry out. Soleimanpour himself is turning the pages backstage, and about halfway through the play the playwright joins the performer onstage.

Theatre review: Islands

Before the current creative team at the Bush got into the pretty good run they've enjoyed for the last couple of years, there was a very shaky six months or so. For me, the only redeeming quality of that time came from Caroline Horton's charming one-woman show You're Not Like the Others Girls Chrissy, so the prospect of Horton and director Omar Elerian teaming up again at the venue was one I'd been looking forward to. Of course, I don't expect writers to do the same thing in every show nor would I want them to, but if Islands is trying to be radically different it succeeds a bit too well - in that her last show was actually good. Horton plays Mary, a self-proclaimed god who, along with sidekicks Agent (John Biddle) and Swill (Seiriol Davies) form a holy trinity who launch a floating island, so they can stay away from the stinking Shitworld below, and keep all their cherries for themselves.

Theatre review: Encounters

The Bush's new regime introduces two of its new Associate Artists, by pairing their existing one-woman shows in a double bill they're calling Encounters. Both shows originated in Edinburgh and have subsequently toured, and first up is Dry Ice, written and performed by Sabrina Mahfouz and directed by David Schwimmer (in a Q&A afterwards, Omar Elerian made reference to Schwimmer having directed it via Skype, a claim Mahfouz denied - I couldn't quite figure out if it was an inside joke or if Elerian had genuinely been told the show was directed via Skype.) Inspired by her time working as a waitress at a strip club, Mahfouz plays Nina, a lap dancer who narrates incidents from her life, stories about the other girls she works with and the "types" of men who come to watch them.