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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Theatre Review: The Importance of Being Earnest
An off-the-wall reinterpretation of an Oscar Wilde classic comes up trumps
In Earnest: Ayesha Casely-Hayford and Kudzanayi Chiwawa
[Harry Elletson]
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 Importance of Being Earnest
Tara Theatre, London
PLAYING all nine characters in Oscar Wilde’s best-loved comic drama, Kudzanayi Chiwawa and Ayesha Casely-Hayford take such liberties with its content and structure that one might expect the whole venture to fall apart in a tangled heap.
Yet the play is so lovingly bashed about that it comes through the ordeal with flying colours, as do the pair themselves.
Operating within a minimalist set and dressed only in white T-shirts and black trousers, Chiwawa and Casely-Hayford offer up a deliberately unruly interpretation of Wilde’s farcical goings-on and, in blurring time, space and boundaries, add an extra dimension to the humour already on offer.
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