The Human Voice, Charing Cross Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis. It’s surely a temptation for today’s directors of Poulenc and Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine, or The Human Voice in this English version, to transpose it to the world of mobile phones. It’s one director Alejandro Bonatto wisely resists.
theatre
Love Goddess. Review by Barbara Lewis. Rita Hayworth was considered one of the most beautiful women of her day, was Fred Astaire’s favourite dance partner, and was married five times, including to Orson Welles, the man she is believed to have truly loved. She also suffered from Alzheimer’s for two decades before being diagnosed.
An Anatomy of Melancholy. Review by Julia Pascal. This is one of the most extraordinary pieces of theatre that I have ever seen. The Pit is transformed into a laboratory with audience sitting in a circle watching the interplay between science, art, music, psychiatry and clinical analysis, in a concept that links the writings of Shakespeare’s contemporary, John Burton, with Freud and 2022 explorations into the mind.
The Coral by Georg Kaiser. Review by Julia Pascal. The work explores the concept of the doppelganger and the fascination for the new science of psychiatry as well as interrogating capitalism itself.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Review by Barbara Lewis. In our angst-ridden age, the thirst for the tonic of musical theatre seems almost unquenchable. In a production that acknowledges so vividly the follies of the supposedly scholarly elite, the rustics dazzle.
Poetry review – PERFORMANCE RITES: James Roderick Burns admires Barry Smith’s exploration of the overlap between art and nature
My Fair Lady. English National Opera. Review by Julia Pascal. My Fair Lady, the musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion is staged at the English National Opera this summer.
The Excursions of Mr Broucek. Review by Barbara Lewis. The Excursions of Mr Broucek is an opera like no other – or as Wasfi Kani, the founder and power behind the bold, brave and never daunted Grange Park Opera, puts it: “Cosi fan Tutti it isn’t.”
As You Like It. Review by Barbara Lewis. Shakespeare famously was for all time, and yet this version of As You Like It feels uniquely relevant to our age.
Lillias White Sings Broadway. Review by Barbara Lewis. The pan-damn-demic, as Broadway singer Lillias White puts it, has abated sufficiently for her to bring her considerable presence to cosy, atmospheric venues, including London’s Crazy Coqs.
Anyone Can Whistle. Southwark Playhouse. Review by Barbara Lewis. Anyone Can Whistle opened on Broadway in April 1964 to mixed reviews and closed shortly afterwards. Nearly 60 years on, this Southwark revival deserves to run and run as Georgie Rankcom’s inspired direction does justice to Sondheim’s genius, even when in its early phase, to make musicals from the most unlikely material.
Pussycat in Memory of Darkness. Review by Barbara Lewis. Kristin Milward’s performance of Pussycat in Memory of Darkness in Kyiv in December was the first visiting foreign production in the capital since the Russian invasion began in February last year.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2023 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, playwrights, theatre