Theatre review: The Changeling

Ricky Dukes is a fun director, but he does seem incredibly keen on filling small stages with huge furniture, then letting his casts loose to try and manoeuvre their way around it: In last year's Doctor Faustus it was a maze of big wooden desks that everyone was banging their shins against; for this year's return to The Little with The Changeling they're trying to squeeze around a boardroom table, with Colette O'Rourke's Beatrice-Joanna at one point getting stuck when her hooped wedding dress swallowed an office chair. I haven’t seen Succession (it’s not on any of my streaming services, I’m not being a hipster about it,) but I assume that like a lot of recent shows that’s the visual reference that Sorcha Corcoran’s design is making.

Theatre review: Paper Cut

If theatre has a tendency for unintended themed programming, where a number of creatives simultaneously decide to tackle similar ideas, then young gay men with disabilities is shaping up to be one of the themes coming to prominence in 2023. It's fertile theatrical ground: Some of the best theatre showcases the experiences of people who belong to minorities, so those of people who belong to two or more will present unique insights. Never mind the fact that in the intersection of these particular two minorities you get a group that can become slaves to a very particular idea of physical perfection, with another living and even thriving with very different bodies. The Park Theatre seems to be the hub for these stories at the moment - not long after Animal in the main house, we get Paper Cut in the studio, and Andrew Rosendorf's play also takes in PTSD, and soldiers' place in the world after they can no longer serve.

Theatre review: Hamlet (Lazarus / Southwark Playhouse)

I don't have a lot of firm rules for myself on how to write reviews, and those I do have mainly involve avoiding bad habits I dislike in other writers. So I try to always include some description, however cursory, of a play's basic story: Everyone's knowledge and experience is different, so why should I assume that a reader already knows the plot, even if the play's Hamlet? But it's not always easy to follow my own rule if the production itself seems to make the assumption that the audience is ahead of the game - if it's not really telling a story, how do I summarise it? I've been following the work of Lazarus Theatre Company on and off over the years, especially since they've become regulars at Southwark Playhouse. Ricky Dukes' productions of the classics tend to be ambitious, with all that that entails, but they always feel like a risk worth taking: Results can be mixed, but there's usually at the very least some interesting elements to take from his ideas. But he may have overreached himself this time.

Theatre review: Doctor Faustus

Perennially Christopher Marlowe's most popular play, Doctor Faustus gets another revival, this time from Lazarus, the small-scale classics company that returns to Southwark Playhouse after last year's gender-bending take on Salomé. Faustus (Jamie O’Neill) is an arrogant young academic who's decided he's exhausted all the knowledge available to him in books, and will cheat his way to learning the secrets of the universe: He employs a demon to be his servant, to answer any question he may have, and show him the wonders of the world. Mephistopheles' (David Angland) services, of course, come at the highest possible price: In return for 24 years of service, he gets Faustus to sell his soul to Lucifer (Candis Butler Jones.) Faustus manages to convince himself he doesn't believe in the afterlife anyway so it's a zero-risk gamble, until the deal is done and he has to face the consequences.

Theatre review: Salomé

Oscar Wilde is known for extremes: The frothy comedies on one hand, the disgrace and despair of his later years on the other. Somewhere in between was his desire to add a more dramatic string to his bow, and like Racine a couple of centuries earlier he wanted to take Greek Tragedy as his starting point. His personal life having other plans, the only one of these tragedies he actually got to write was Salomé, which applies a biblical story to that format, ending up with a twisted and gory dance through the extremes of sexual obsession. And that's before you get to the added twists individual productions might have in mind: Ricky Dukes' for Lazarus Theatre isn't even the first I've seen to queer up Wilde even further, by gender-flipping the title character. King Herod (Jamie O'Neill) has, in a plot point reminiscent of another famous tragedy, had his own brother killed and married his widow, Herodias (Pauline Babula.) Apart from the obvious, the tension in their marriage is also caused by Herod's undisguised interest in her son Salomé (Fred Thomas.)

Theatre review: Edward II

A few years ago Ricky Dukes directed a production of Dido, Queen of Carthage I enjoyed, and now he and Lazarus Theatre return to Christopher Marlowe for a heavily edited and adapted version of Edward II. Luke Ward-Wilkinson plays the titular king, who in the opening scene learns of his father’s death and his own accession to the throne, and responds by immediately recalling his banished lover Gaveston (Bradley Frith,) much to the displeasure of his nobles. Whether Gaveston is at court or in exile, he’s a constant distraction to the king, and with conflict at home and abroad his attention is needed for the safety of England. At least that’s their story: Beneath the rhetoric the rebellion led by Mortimer (Jamie O’Neill) looks more like an opportunistic grab at power from a weak and distracted king.