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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Predictive anti-drama
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
NO THRILLS: East is South at Hampstead Theatre
[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
East is South
Hampstead Theatre, London
AI IS a grim subject. And Beau Willimon’s East is South at Hampstead Theatre does nothing to alleviate the gloom.
The play is set in a light, clean but bleak interrogation room. A lone young woman communes with herself, and possibly God, seemingly unaware that figures on a balcony watch her every move. She and a fellow systems-programmer are suspected of… well, predictable things: messing with the highly intelligent, fearsomely dangerous AI beast they’ve created, anthropomorphising it, double or triple dealing with Russia and other foreign powers, having a secret affair with one another, and potentially releasing a super-intelligence into the world at large.
A thriller possibly. If so, where’s the suspense?
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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