Tag Archives: Barbican Theatre

Avalanche

Barbican Theatre, London ****
Runs: 1hr 30mins without interval
Review of perf seen May 2, 2019

© The Other Richard, Maxine Peake as the woman - stubborn, determined to become a mother by IVF...

© The Other Richard, Maxine Peake as the woman – stubborn, determined to become a mother by IVF…

The desire to conceive, to be a mother. What a mighty force it is and how society has made it, in the West at least, one of its pre-eminent priorities. Millions has been spent on fertility research. And millions are now spent on treatment in ensuring that the desire to conceive is met. Continue reading

The Cherry Orchard

Barbican Theatre, London ****
Runs: 2hr 50mins incl 20 min interval

Review by Carole Woddis of performance seen Feb 5, 2019:

© Alex Yocu, Alexander Petrov (Lopakhin), Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya (Varya) and the company...

© Alex Yocu, Alexander Petrov (Lopakhin), Natalia Reva-Ryadinskaya (Varya), Victoria Isakova (Ranevskaya) and the company…

Visits by Russian companies are always welcome. Generally, they bring such flair and excitement to texts no matter how well over-worked they are in our own repertoire. Continue reading

The Wooster Group – The Town Hall Affair

Barbican Theatre, London ****

© Hervé  Veronese, Scott  Shepherd,  Ari  Fliakos  as the two Normal Mailers and  Greg  Mehrten as Diana Trilling,

© Hervé Veronese, Scott Shepherd, Ari Fliakos as the two Normal Mailers and Greg Mehrten as Diana Trilling, and behind them, the Pennebaker and Hegedus documentary showing Greer, Mailer and Trilling

To say The Wooster Group are iconic is a bit like saying in the summer, the sun shines. It’s a given. The Wooster Group have been at the forefront of experimental theatre-making for nearly half a century. Continue reading

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Barbican Theatre, London ***

© Pia Johnson, Harriet Gordon-Anderson, Nikki Shiels and Elizabeth Nabben...the returned schoolgirls trying to find out what has happened and setting upon one of their teachers...

© Pia Johnson, Harriet Gordon-Anderson, Nikki Shiels and Elizabeth Nabben…the returned schoolgirls trying to find out what has happened and setting upon one of their teachers…

Somehow both the original novel by Joan Lindsay and the subsequent cult film by Peter Weir (1975) of the Australian `ghost’ story, Picnic at Hanging Rock escaped me. Continue reading

Coriolanus

Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Theatte, London ****

© Helen Maybanks, Sope Dirisu, a bloody iconic anti-hero for our time.

© Helen Maybanks, Sope Dirisu, a bloody iconic anti-hero for our time.

Coriolanus may not be the most frequently staged of Shakespeare’s political Roman dramas although it nearly always gets included when a series of them are run together as here with the latest RSC season, under the banner title of Rome MMXVII. Continue reading

Macbeth

Barbican Theatre, London (*****)

© Sakurahutar, Masachika Ichimura and Yuko Tanaka - Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

© Sakurahutar, Masachika Ichimura and Yuko Tanaka – Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Yukio Ninagawa, Peter Brook, Peter Stein, Robert Lepage, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, Yuri Lubimov – the 1980s and 1990s inspired an amazing blossoming of world class international directors. Continue reading