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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Worrisome intrusion on the American Dream
The fragile foundations of post-war US optimism are ever present in Arthur Miller's play, says TOM KING
PIC CAP Hoping against hope: Sally Field as Kate Keller
[Johan Persson]
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
All My Sons
Old Vic, London
SET at a time when Americans, sure of their place in the world after the defeat of fascism in WWII, were able to pursue their collective dream, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons begins in the sunny, vernal tranquility of a leafy Mid West suburb.
That sense of security is personified in the figure of Joe Keller (Bill Pullman), a successful businessman and archetypal family man. Outside a sunlit clapboard house bordered by a picket fence he reads the papers, jokes with neighbours and chats with his son Chris (Colin Morgan).
But gradually, through throwaway comments and casual conversation – testament to Miller’s skill as a playwright – we learn that he and his wife Kate (Sally Field) had another son, Jerry, who went missing in action during the second world war which had finished only two years previously.
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MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a fascinating, revealing, superbly acted evening of theatre
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class