Theatre review: Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe)

After the government's handling of Covid-19 in general, and the arts in particular last year, I think there was always an expectation that when theatre did come back, it was unlikely to have become any less critical of those in power. I'm not sure anyone would have guessed that a Globe production of Romeo & Juliet would be the first to really give it to them with both barrels; unless, of course, they'd seen a certain political photo opp featuring Michelle Terry in the background, glaring with the heat of a hundred suns. Ola Ince's production was one originally planned for the scrapped 2020 season, and was presumably always conceived as intensely political, but I wonder how much the last year sharpened its teeth. In a city where the ruler cracks down on violence to avoid having to look too deeply into its causes, Romeo (Startled Giraffe Alfred Enoch) and Juliet (Rebekah Murrell) fall in love, against the wishes of the rival gangs they both belong to.

Theatre review: J'Ouvert

Second in the season of three new plays reopening the Harold Pinter Theatre is one that originally debuted in the much more intimate Theatre 503, where it must have felt pretty cramped as Yasmin Joseph's J'Ouvert tries to cram the whole Notting Hill Carnival on stage. It is, to start with at least, a pretty loose journey through the day with three young women: Nadine (Gabrielle Brooks) and Jade (Sapphire Joy) have known each other since they were children, while Nisha (Annice Boparai) is a newer friend who recruited them for a local activist group. Nadine is a bit cold and standoffish with Nisha, who she sees as a bit of a cultural tourist at an event with specifically Afro-Carribean roots, but Nisha believes it's an opportunity for women of colour to stand together and stand up for each other, and sees Jade as a potentially inspiring speaker for their cause.

Theatre review: Scenes with Girls

With #MeToo, #TimesUp and other related hashtags popular themes in new plays over the last few years, there's no question theatre has engaged with the fact that women's position in society is long overdue a shake-up. But Miriam Battye's Scenes with Girls deals with the tricky question of just how easy it'll be to figure out what that new position is. For two best friends since high school, and now flatmates, it's all about taking the language and ideas of feminist forums and applying them directly to their own lives, but they've got very different interpretations of this: Lou (Rebekah Murrell) isn't interested in a relationship with a man but wants to have sex with a lot of them without feeling slut-shamed about it; she treats it like a man stereotypically would, proudly tallying up the number of her sexual conquests. (She has considered a relationship with a woman in theory, but is worried she'd be so prone to letting her have her way out of feminist solidarity that she'd become a doormat.)

Theatre review: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.

Caryl Churchill’s later career has been typified by her enviable ability to make her point incredibly succinctly – her plays tend to be short and sharp, culminating in her writing Love and Information in the format of a sketch show. Her latest premiere at the Royal Court is a more loosely connected quadruple bill of plays: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.’s stories are self-contained and varied in style, but all share a theme of deconstructing legends and fairytales, bringing the fantastical into an often comically banal light and finding the dark truth behind the magical fiction. Each play is slightly longer than the one before, so the first act consists of the first three stories, opening with Glass in which Kwabena Ansah, Louisa Harland, Patrick McNamee and Rebekah Murrell tell the story of a girl made of glass (Murrell,) trying to navigate her teenage years and a romance with a boy (McNamee) who may be as fragile as she is in his own way.

Theatre review: Nine Night

Actor Natasha Gordon’s accomplished first play Nine Night takes its name from a Jamaican funeral custom: The wake takes place over nine nights, with a series of boisterous parties in honour of the deceased; on the final night their spirit is encouraged to move on. In another case of a play arriving at a time that makes it accidentally topical, we’re in the house of a woman from the Windrush generation, Gloria, who’s just died of cancer. Nine Night is an ensemble piece but at the heart of it is Gloria’s younger daughter Lorraine (Franc Ashman,) who took voluntary redundancy to care for her mother during her final months, and has now been left in charge of the funeral arrangements, and of keeping up with the food and drink demands of a regular stream of guests. We only hear the parties in the background; the action takes place in the kitchen, still done up in 1970s style (set design by Rajha Shakiry.)