Death of a Salesman (Noel Coward Theatre, London)
Willy Loman is to 20th century drama what Lear is to classical theatre. A titanic figure, he’s one of Arthur Miller’s greatest tragic creations. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Harriet Walter
Julius Caesar
Donmar Warehouse, London
Phyllida Lloyd doesn’t pull her punches with this barnstorming all female production of one of Shakespeare’s most political plays. Continue reading
The Tempest
Donmar Warehouse at King’s Cross, London (****)
© Helen Maybanks, Harriet Walter as Prospero
It’s hard to over-estimate the impact of Phyllida Lloyd’s Shakespeare Trilogy in its environmentally immersive aluminium shed by King’s Cross. As the programme notes eloquently point out, because of the place Shakespeare holds in our culture, we’ve been lulled into a false perspective of our society, given the disparity in the overall number of roles for women the plays reflect. Continue reading
Death of a Salesman
Noel Coward Theatre, London
© Ellie Kurttz
Willy Loman is to 20th century drama what Lear is to classical theatre. A titanic figure, he’s one of Arthur Miller’s greatest tragic creations. An achingly desolate symbol of the American dream gone sour, he stands, like Lear, as one of the summits of an actor’s career. The little man who has given his all to a system that has ground him down, it’s a part that demands an enormous journey, like Lear, of the actor who takes him on. Continue reading
Boa
Trafalgar Studios Theatre, London
© Helen Murray
As Vera Brittain wrote of her WW1 lover, Roland Leighton, after his death, `I did not then know that if the living are to be of any use in this world, they must always break faith with the dead.’
Henry IV
Donmar Warehouse
Phyllida Lloyd’s second run at an all female Shakespeare succeeds even more enjoyably than did her explosive opener, Julius Caesar. This is a Shakespearean production to treasure on all counts. Like Julius Caesar, once again it is set within a group of women prisoners performing the play inside prison.