To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Fragile Glass
Tennessee Williams’s play is a reminder of the precarious existence of many in the US of the inter-war years, says LYNNE WALSH
Sparkling: Lesley Ewen as Amanda with Michael Abubakar as Tom
[Idil Sukan]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
The Glass Menagerie
Arcola Theatre, London
ALL coquettish wiles and smiling scheming, Lesley Ewen commands the stage as Amanda Wingfield in this tricky old Tennessee Williams classic. It’s a huge performance at the play’s epicentre.
Her desire to raise her children beyond their abilities or ambition in the austerity-stricken St Louis of 1937 creates unbearable tension and the resultant matriarchal bullying, played at this pitch, can exhaust an audience.
Her every feature is florid, her dialogue a torrent of words. Even the Magic Flute’s Queen of the Night seemed to pause and breathe more often.
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Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis
GORDON PARSONS is disappointed by an unsubtle production of this comedy of upper middle class infidelity