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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MAYER WAKEFIELD interviews Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage and cast members from her musical The Secret Life of Bees
[Marc Brenner/CC]
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
FEW writers have managed to capture the zeitgeist of 21st century America like Lynn Nottage did in her “uncompromising and frequently disquieting” 2015 play Sweat which earned undivided praise in London, New York and, crucially, from the residents of the rustbelt town of Reading, Pennsylvania, where it is set.
It also earned her a second Pulitzer prize for drama, making her the only female writer with that distinction.
Her ability to get under the skin of the times through deftly constructed characters, humorous observations and a knack for coaxing dramatic tension make her one of the most in-demand writers on the planet right now.
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MARY CONWAY is blown away by a flawless production of Lynn Nottage’s exquisite tragedy