Caryl Churchill is the presiding playwright of our era. At 78, every play she writes is an event – not because of their rarity, or a forelock-tugging spirit of sentimentality, but because each text explains our time to us, shows us the paths we are taking. She ended 2015 with Here We Go, her devastating shard about death and old age; she began 2016 with Escaped Alone, … [Read more...]
This is what we know
What will your death be like? Probably not like this. Blank, seen in the Bush Theatre’s recent RADAR Festival, is a semi-improvised piece by Nassim Soleimanpour. A one-time-only performer receives a script full of blanks, the key words are missing. Some blanks the performer fills; others are solicited from the audience; and a volunteer is selected to add details from their own biography. When I … [Read more...]
Election night at the theatre
You might as well spend the evening of a national election at the National Theatre: it should be, among other things, somewhere where a nation can speak to itself. So that’s where I went. Rufus Norris’ first programme as artistic director offers a spread of voices arguing about how humans should act towards each other: environmentally (Everyman), maritally (The Beaux’ Stratagem) and … [Read more...]