Tag Archives: Ivo van Hove

Network

Lyttelton, National Theatre, London ****

© Jan Versweyveld, Bryan Cranston as celebrity newscaster, Howard Beale

© Jan Versweyveld, Bryan Cranston as celebrity newscaster, Howard Beale

You’ve only to cast your eyes down the cast pages of the NT’s heavyweight theatre programme to see the scale of those involved in Ivo van Hove’s production of Network.  Continue reading

After the Rehearsal/Persona

Barbican Theatre, London (***)

© Jan Versweyveld, Marieke Heebink, Gijs Scholten van Aschat and Gaite Jansen, locked in destructive embraces...in Persona

© Jan Versweyveld, Marieke Heebink, Gijs Scholten van Aschat and Gaite Jansen, locked in destructive embraces…in Persona

Having excavated Visconti (Ossessione), Ivo van Hove has now moved on to Ingmar Bergman. Much as I admire van Hove – and I do – I am a little perplexed as to why he’s involved himself quite so much in transferring the inscrutable into the literal. Continue reading

Obsession

Barbican Theatre, London (****)

© Jan Versweyveld, Halina Reijn (Hanna), Jude Law (Gino)

© Jan Versweyveld, Halina Reijn (Hanna), Jude Law (Gino)

Ivo van Hove is simply everywhere at present, the wunderkind of international theatre and opera. It’s understandable why he is so much in demand. He has a way of envisioning that is either truly spectacular or passionately intimate, as was the case with his award-winning production of A View from the Bridge for the Young Vic. Continue reading

Antonioni Project/Roman Tragedies

Barbican Theatre

Back in the early 1960s, anyone with half a curious cultural brain in their heads would take themselves off to small fleapit cinemas like The Academy or the Classic in Oxford Street (now defunct). There you could catch the latest European or `art’ film. And at one of these I remember seeing Italian director Antonioni’s La Notte (The Night) with Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni. Such was its impact neither I nor the flat mates I was with were able to utter a word until we reached home. Continue reading