by Tom Brocklehurst
The New Wimbledon Theatre is hosting a series of Richard Foreman’s early avant-garde works from the 1960s and 70s. Based on that sentence alone, you will already know whether you’re interested in coming along.
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New York
Waitress, Adelphi Theatre
by Laura Kressly
Butter, sugar, flour – these pie crust ingredients form a comforting motif that gets Jenna through each day. There are her solace every morning as she bakes her insecurities, worries and feelings into pies that are served in a small-town American diner. The young waitress is full of hopes and dreams but her story, like the script that contains it, has another ingredient so thoroughly embedded in the narrative that it leaves such a nasty aftertaste that it overpowers everything else.
CW: abuse, abortion, assault
Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, Young Vic
by Maeve Campbell
Angel Cruz has shot a man in the ass. He says he didn’t kill the religious cult leader, who
had apparently brainwashed his best friend Joey, but this man is now dead. This is where
we start Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train. What follows is a compelling exploration of guilt,
goodness and godliness as Angel, incarcerated in New York’s infamous Rikers Island,
confronts his emphatic public defender, a sadistic prison guard and a charismatic, born-
again Christian serial killer.
Hadestown, National Theatre
By Laura Kressly
How can we radically reinvent myths and classic literature? I mean, really radically – not in a box ticking way, or a modernisation the production wears like a piece of costume that doesn’t really change the thematic core of the story. I mean thoroughly, totally, completely. So all traces of horrible ‘isms’ and ‘ists’ are either reframed or criticised.
The Unbuilt City, King’s Head Theatre
by Laura Kressly
Claudia is a reclusive collector whiling away the time in her Brooklyn Heights townhouse overlooking the East River and lower Manhattan. Jonah is a young writer day jobbing for his old university’s academic archives. He’s been sent to see if Claudia has a priceless item, long thought lost, hidden away in her home. As her life approaches it’s midnight hour, she is desperate to cling to the last thing that gives her some power and Jonah is desperate to win this commission which would financially secure his immediate future.
Long Day’s Journey into Night, Brooklyn Academy of Music
by guest critic Steven Strauss
On its surface, the title Long Day’s Journey into Night describes the looooong four acts it takes Eugene O’Neill’s play to chronicle the story of one day-into-night in the life of the Tyrone family. Metaphorically, it suggests how the play utilizes this micro-slice of life to depict how this autobiographical family descends from the daylight of sanity to the darkness of madness in a macro sense, and how their projected reality in the sunlight of day masks the true darkness of night lingering underneath.
A Brief History of Women, 59E59
By guest critic Steven Strauss
If the powers-that-be At New York’s Brits Off Broadway were to name a resident playwright, Alan Ayckbourn would surely take the crown.
