STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Less talk, more action
An explicit take on sexual power games could do with less reliance on arid discourse and more engagement in meaningful drama, says MARY CONWAY
Magnificent: Cate Blanchett (left)
[Stephen Cummiskey]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other
National Theatre, London
“EXTREME sex and violence” warns the hype for this new play by Martin Crimp at the National and there’s even a notice on the door about its “shockable” nature as you go in.
So you enter braced for pornography, albeit with a lead performance by none other than the great Cate Blanchett.
And she is magnificent. While displaying all the “infinite variety” of a modern Cleopatra, she holds the attention endlessly, with her face, voice, body and essential substance totally at her command. Sometimes a soft yielding girl, at others she’s the dominant male.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
MARY CONWAY recommends a play that some will find more discursive than eventful but one in which the characters glow
MARY CONWAY relishes two matchless performers and a masterclass in tightly focused wordplay
PETER MASON is moved by a striking production of Noel Streatfeild’s enduringly popular children’s book