Theatre review: A Tupperware of Ashes

The Dorfman's about to go dark for a while for another refurb, but it bows out for now in style with a show reminiscent of The Father, both in subject matter and in being something I was very glad to catch, but wouldn't want to put myself through again in a hurry. In Tanika Gupta's A Tupperware of Ashes Meera Syal plays Queenie, a name whose significance is obscure to start with, but which becomes clearer as Gupta gives us a loose reimagining of King Lear, charting the tragic mental breakdown of an independent, successful British-Bengali woman. Queenie is a chef with her own, recently Michelin-starred restaurant, although some of the things we learn about her success early on in the play come into question soon after: Her behaviour has started to change quite a lot, and her doctor daughter Kamala's (Natalie Dew) worst suspicions are confirmed when she sends her off for tests.

Theatre review: A Little Life

I think it's the first 2023 show to self-identify as "the theatrical event of the year" - certainly A Little Life has become a hot topic, whether because of selling out so conclusively it's already added a second West End run, or the discussion of whether it represents the apex of misery porn, or just because people like celebrity cock (something this blog has never had any strong opinions about, obviously.) Then there's the fact that it's had a decidedly marmite response from the critics - my personal experience with Ivo van Hove has been very love/hate as well so this really could have gone any number of ways. van Hove and Koen Tachelet adapt Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 novel about Jude (James Norton,) one of a quartet of university friends who stay close throughout their lives. He's well-liked but it's openly acknowledged among his friendship group that he's so private they don't know the most basic things about him.

Theatre review: The Two Character Play

If it's not common knowledge quite how long and prolific Tennessee Williams' writing career actually was, it's not just a case of not all his Southern melodramas being up there with A Streetcar Named Desire and the other hits; it's also that later in his career he experimented with other styles wildly different from what he's best-known for. As Hampstead Theatre resumes its aborted 2020 anniversary season of shows that premiered there over its long history of new writing, we get to Williams channeling Beckett (worrying,) Ionesco and Pirandello (better) in 1967's The Two Character Play. It does share with earlier work like The Glass Menagerie a personal inspiration: Williams' relationship with his troubled sister Rose, whose mental health problems and the brutal way they were treated give those plays a tragic undertone. But here not only does it seem like we meet a Rose avatar after the lobotomy, that could be the state of mind the whole play takes place in.

Theatre review: Ghost Quartet

Hot on the heels of Preludes another Dave Malloy musical makes its London debut, as does the venue where it plays: The Boulevard Theatre is built on the site of a long-lost theatre of the same name in central London; the website says the Boulevard “sits in the centre of Soho’s infamous streets and alleyways,” and I don’t know that I would have personally led with a reminder of the chances of getting mugged but hey, you do you. The building was formerly the Raymond Revue Bar and still has a massive sign for it on the wall, but once you run the gauntlet of shops selling poppers and Viagra the inside is less tits’n’minge, more the looking-like-a-mid-range-hotel feel that the front of house areas of new-build theatres always go for these days. The auditorium itself is promising though – the seats are comfortable with actual leg room, and the venue looks well-equipped and flexible: Simon Kenny’s design puts us in the round but it looks like various other layouts would be possible without losing the good sightlines.

Theatre review: Equus

Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus is a psychological thriller heavily inspired by the then-popular theories of R. D. Laing; the theories have long since been discredited but Equus remains popular, and Ned Bennett's new production for English Touring Theatre makes it clear why it still has something that resonates 46 years later. Martin Dysart (Zubin Varla) is a child psychiatrist convinced to add to his already-heavy workload because his friend, the magistrate Hester (Ruth Lass) thinks he's the only one who can give the boy a fair hearing. 17-year-old Alan Strang (Ethan Kai) has been sent to an institution after blinding six horses in the stables where he had a weekend job. When he meets the initially uncommunicative Alan, Dysart discovers a young man who rather than hating the animals he maimed, has had a lifelong love and fascination for them that tipped over into religious worship.

Theatre review: Fun Home

The Young Vic’s programme is announced so far in advance that only now, months after Kwame Kwei-Armah took over as Artistic Director, do we get the final show programmed by his predecessor David Lan. And it’s a powerful note to end on, as he imports Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron’s (book and lyrics) unconventional Broadway musical hit Fun Home, which adapts Alison Bechdel’s non-linear, autobiographical graphic novel for the stage. The story device sees Kaisa Hammarlund as the adult Alison try to write her book, struggling to come up with the correct caption to describe her relationship with her father Bruce (Zubin Varla,) the relationship which forms the centre of her story. It’s largely the story of her coming to terms with her sexuality and coming out, told through flashbacks to her childhood as Small Alison (Harriet Turnbull, alternating with Brooke Haynes) and her college years as Medium Alison (Eleanor Kane.)

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe)

I think I've done a good job of keeping an open mind about Emma Rice taking over the Globe; the former Kneehigh boss has been responsible for various shows I've really not liked in the past, and hasn't helped with comments in the papers about shaking up the text, and the rarely-performed Shakespeares staying rarely-performed under her watch. But people can surprise you* and there's been good buzz around her debut production - indeed the sole Shakespeare play she'll be directing herself in her first year - so I was cautiously optimistic about her take on the currently-ubiquitous A Midsummer Night's Dream. The setting is, sort-of, the Globe itself, where the rude mechanicals become a group of the venue's volunteer stewards, led by Rita Quince (Lucy Thackeray,) who opens the show with a funny but stern lecture on how to behave, before deciding to turn actors themselves with a show to celebrate the royal wedding.

Theatre review: Measure for Measure (Young Vic)

My third, and presumably last Measure for Measure of the year, and after a typically caustic, physical and anti-naturalistic one from Cheek by Jowl's Russian arm and an unsuccessful attempt to ramp up the bawdy comedy at the Globe, the Young Vic's production pitches it somewhere in the middle. Joe Hill-Gibbins returns to the venue where he made his name, although instead of the jelly that featured heavily last time he was here, he brings along the video cameras from his Edward II at the National. Miriam Buether's set is a plain wooden box that, when the curtains go back, is piled high with blow-up plastic sex dolls. This, it seems, is what the people of Vienna have been reduced to in the eyes of the Duke (Zubin Varla.) The city's morality laws are actually incredibly strict, so he's let them slip during the 19 years of his rule. He now feels this was a mistake, but he'd feel hypocritical enforcing them now himself. So he pretends to leave the city, posing as a friar to see what happens when he leaves the puritanical Angelo in charge. What could possibly go wrong?

Theatre review: Dara

Based on the story of the 17th century Indian princes whose mother's death inspired the building of the Taj Mahal, Shahid Nadeem’s Dara is adapted by Tanya Ronder and directed by Nadia Fall for the National. Dara (Zubin Varla) is the oldest brother and Crown Prince, expected to succeed the Emperor of Hindustan. But after dispensing with youngest brother Murad (Rudi Dharmalingam,) the middle brother Aurangzeb (Sargon Yelda) mounts a coup, imprisoning Dara and their father, and installing himself as Emperor. Beloved of the people, Dara will always be a threat, but having him killed off will only make him a martyr. The solution comes in Dara's books of poetry and religious philosophy, in which the devout Muslim examines the teachings of other faiths. If Aurangzeb can have him condemned as an apostate to Islam, his blood won't seem to be on his hands.

Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida (RSC & Wooster Group / Swan & Riverside Studios)

Troilus and Cressida has always been listed among Shakespeare's Problem Plays, although I doubt it's ever been quite as problematic as this. In a programme note, co-director Mark Ravenhill (a late replacement when Rupert Goold had a scheduling conflict) discusses the messy jumps in tone that saw the play labelled as such, and explains the reasoning behind this production: Instead of trying to tame the chaos, let's embrace the inconsistencies and randomness of life that the play throws at us. In the 7th year of the Trojan War, the Greek army is attempting to get its most celebrated warrior, Achilles, out of the tent he shares with friend/lover Patroclus, and back into battle. Meanwhile in besieged Troy, Prince Troilus is wooing Cressida with the help of her uncle Pandarus, not knowing that she will soon be traded to the Greeks in a hostage negotiation.

Theatre review: Don Juan Comes Back From the War

Writing in the 1930s with the Second World War on the horizon, Ödön von Horváth relocated Don Juan to Germany at the end of the First. In Don Juan Comes Back From the War the now middle-aged lothario (Zubin Varla) returns to Berlin in the belief that he can start again where he left off, surrounded by women. But a sudden heart attack proves otherwise and his visit to the hospital is the start of a search for meaning, and perhaps an understanding of where he's been going wrong in thinking he knows anything about love. For all his philandering he had been due to settle down, but left his bride-to-be at the alter before going to war; he now thinks finding her again is the answer.

Ellan Parry is the latest designer to squeeze a raised thrust stage into the Finborough, full of hidden compartments that conceal props, and the clever design helps Andrea Ferran's production give the feel of Don Juan's odyssey through the streets of Berlin. A cast of six play the dozens of women he encounters along the way, and there's a very strong central section when he reunites with a former lover (Rosie Thomson) he's long since forgotten. The production itself, and the performances, are hard to fault, but I've found von Horváth's work hard to click with in the past, and it's the same again here: In the end, the play left me cold.

Don Juan Comes Back From the War by Ödön von Horváth in a version by Duncan Macmillan is booking until the 24th of March at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes straight through.