Belvoir Theatre's Wild Duck Shall we start with the duck? Ibsen’s stage directions keep the titular Wild Duck offstage. It remains a symbol of damage, or survival, or of secrecy long-subsumed. Well, pellets to that, because Belvoir Theatre from Sydney, whose lacerating 2011 production is at London’s Barbican, give us plenty of chances to see and adore a real live, flapping mallard. Twitter … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2014
In and out of history
What happens when an artist outlives their own era? When a voice, once so urgent, seems out of time, flailing for connection? Yuri Lyubimov, the great Russian director who died earlier this month aged 97, was a theatrical lightning conductor during the icy Soviet years, gathering the implacable forces of the state and zapping them back in provokingly surreal and thrilling ways. His theatre in … [Read more...]
Mam’zelle Sexymoves
Seems I’m a lightweight. I thought that seeing two casts in the Royal Ballet's revival of Manon by Kenneth MacMillan was pretty dedicated, until one of my editors revealed she would watch six casts and had designs on a seventh. That's an awful lot of Manon: but MacMillan's 1974 ballet allows for a panoply of interpretation. Seeing how the pieces fall each time can become addictive. Manon, based … [Read more...]
Unleash the lulz
Using the theatre to discuss the internet is like trying to microwave your ready meal with a candle. Dawn-of-time tech, you get me? And yet, using the shonkiest tools available – actors in fuzzy animal suits, a multicoloured ballpond, cheesy dancing, inflatable penii – Teh Internet Is Serious Business at London's Royal Court gets a handle on the slippery potential of the shiny medium. It traces … [Read more...]