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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Nothing’s lost in classic play’s translation into the physical language of ballet
[Andy Ross/edinburghfestival.list.co.uk]
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
Scottish Ballet
The Crucible, Edinburgh
★★★★
“Words often fail to tell us how we feel and movement can do that,” claims composer Peter Salem. Choreographer Helen Picket has chosen possibly Arthur Miller’s most powerfully emotional play for Scottish Ballet to test that theory.
Picket’s narrative ballet faithfully follows Miller’s plot dealing with the 17th-century Salem witch trials in a society trapped in its web of moral fundamentalism. Even an audience unfamiliar with the play would easily follow the action.
The music is equally programmatic, with repetitive menacing rhythms only occasionally moving into sometimes plaintive lyricism to mark the more intimate moments.
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MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
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