ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Clever and respectful but missing the requisite dramatic excess
MARITAL CHAOS: Andrea Bræin as Maia Rubek and Hovig and James Browne as Ulfhejm
[Tristam Kenton]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
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GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
When We Dead Awaken
Coronet Theatre, London
IBSEN’S When We Dead Awaken is — as Michael Billington once quipped _ a portrait of the artist as an old man (apologies to James Joyce!)
In the play, successful sculptor Rubek returns to Norway with his young, dissatisfied wife, Maia, only to reconnect with the woman who was the life model for his most successful work and whom he immortalised, albeit in stone.
Through this muse and soul-accomplice Irena, we see how life with its vanities and aspirations, over time, disavows the heart and defeats all inner truths. Only with Irena can Rubek resurrect the soul that he has all but killed.
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