Tag Archives: Sharon D Clarke

Death of a Salesman

Young Vic Theatre, London ****

Review of perf seen May 10, 2019:
Runs: 3hrs with a 15 min interval

© Brinkhoff Mogensburg, Sharon D Clarke (Linda Loman), Wendell Pierce (Willy Loman) - a loving couple but unhappy household...

© Brinkhoff Mogensburg, Sharon D Clarke (Linda Loman), Wendell Pierce (Willy Loman) – a loving couple but unhappy household…

This is the third production of that titan of a play, Arthur Miller’s semi-autobiographical reworking of his own family history, Death of a Salesman, I’ve seen in the past four years.

Miller is having something of a renaissance just at the moment with All My Sons, The American Clock and The Price all having been recently seen in the West End.  Continue reading

The Life

Southwark Playhouse (*****)

© Conrad Blakemore, T'Shan Williams as Queen, heart broken but dreaming dreams of freedom in 1980s New York's Times Square.

© Conrad Blakemore, T’Shan Williams as Queen, heart broken but dreaming dreams of freedom in 1980s New York’s Times Square.

Even if you’re not a musical aficionado, Michael Blakemore’s production and the way the young cast headed by Sharon D Clarke get hold of and deliver Cy Coleman’s music with Ira Gasman’s lyrics will just blow you away. Continue reading

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Lyttelton, National Theatre, London (****)

© Johan Persson. Sharon D Clarke as Ma Rainey

© Johan Persson. Sharon D Clarke as Ma Rainey

There’s a kind of irony in the National’s directorial choice for August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The story of a recording by the `mother’ of the Blues and the struggle for black musicians to control their own music-making, it was the Broadway hit that catapulted Wilson into the limelight in 1984 and the first in its author’s decalogy tracing the history of African-Americans in the 20th century. Continue reading