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
Latest editorial
The weighty tribulations of the Jewish legacy deserve a finer hearing
Key issues are ducked as Freedland preaches to the converted, writes MARY CONWAY
Stories gathered from real people and delivered by actors
[Manuel Harlan]
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
Jews. In Their Own Words
Royal Court
THE Royal Court describes its production of Jonathan Freedland’s Jews. In Their Own Words as a “searing and incisive” verbatim play. Rather, it is a single-theme invective disguised as performance.
Not that it isn’t gripping.
The evening is devoted to a series of stories gathered from real people and delivered by actors. All focus on what it is like to be Jewish and how the abiding prejudice of centuries has dogged their lives. All enjoy the permission to give unchallenged accounts. All are equally nice, reasonable and charming individuals. All employ humour that targets a like-minded audience. Indeed, if it weren’t for the shocking content, it would be almost saccharine.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
In search of political understanding, MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes a critique of anti-semitism as codified by the Israeli state
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual