Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins: two geniuses who sound as horrible to work with as they were inspiring to watch. Two artists whose choreography is tightly locked into the DNA of the silver-plated shows they helped create. Unpicking their movement from those landmark Manhattan musicals is tough – Robbins’ West Side Story gangboys who stake a leaping, finger-clicking claim on the streets; Fosse’s … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2019
Propwatch: the poppet in The Crucible
Last night, as a cat nestled in the crook of my arm and its paws rasped happily over my fingers, I thought: I’m just a step away from a 17th-century witch trial. None of my neighbours in this part of London has an ailing pig or a crop prone to blight, praise be. But we all have our sorrows, and all need a way to explain them too ourselves. A cat and a pact with the devil are as good as … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the glasses in A German Life
Maggie Smith clutches a pair of glasses throughout her 100-minute monologue in A German Life. She holds them in her right hand mostly, but never puts them on: they’re more decoy than accessory. As Brunhilde Pomsel – who worked as a secretary to Goebbels during the war, and whose reminiscences are the basis of this play by Christopher Hampton – Smith feints and dithers, quavers around remorse and … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the mirror in Richard II
Richard II hands over the crown to a usurper, and the now-deposed monarch asks for a mirror. ‘That it may show me what a face I have.’ In the new production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe, the glass is a rectangle, size of an i-pad. Richard takes it in both hands and looks, long and hard. What face does Richard see? Not, as in virtually any previous production, the face of a white … [Read more...]