MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
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Method in a maelstrom of make-believe
KATHERINE M GRAHAM sees a dizzyingly brilliant quartet of plays which ask disconcerting questions about the stories we create and give credence to
Disbelieving: The cast of Bluebeard’s Friends
[Johan Persson]
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
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
Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.
Royal Court Theatre, London
IN EACH of these four short pieces, Caryl Churchill suggests that myth, fairy tale, religion and Shakespeare are all just narratives we choose to believe in — or not.
In opener Glass, a girl befriends a boy whose father is abusive. Their friendship allows him to escape but leaves Rebekah Murrell’s poignantly played Glass Girl fractured and broken.
Kill has the gods retelling and distilling the stories of the House of Atreus, boiling them down into an absurd and horrific violent essence, while in Bluebeard’s Friends, four dinner-party guests express their disbelief that their great friend, Bluebeard, can have murdered multiple wives.
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GEORGE FOGARTY is dazzled by a breathtakingly skillful puppet version of Shakespeare’s greatest love poem
WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Tin Soldier and The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire
MARIA DUARTE recommends the ambitious portrait of an agricultural community confronted by the trauma of enclosure