When Emma Rice was appointed artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe earlier this year, it seemed an inspired choice. Irreverent, populist, she was director of Kneehigh. a company with a ballsy, outward-facing performance style splashed with visual and musical vigour. Her initial Globe interviews, however, wound me right up – she couldn’t stop banging on about how she struggled with Shakespeare, … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2016
Propwatch: the invisible chairs in Boy
Our chat before Boy began was all about the travelator. The Almeida Theatre has been reconfigured for Leo Butler’s play to allow a moving walkway to snake around the space. Actors were already sitting, gliding past and waiting for something to happen (the play opens in a GP’s waiting room). But how are they sitting? It took us a minute to realise that there were no chairs on the travelator. … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the mop in The Flick
No one selects a mop for its glamour. The mop that appears in the second half of The Flick is dowdier than most – a disconsolate tangle that once a day swabs the stickier kinds of refuse in a failing Massachusetts movie theatre. I don’t know if the mop I saw at the National Theatre had appeared, like actors Louisa Krause and Matthew Maher, in Sam Gold’s original New York production (photo above … [Read more...]