The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
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Partial success of chop and change
Transmorphed into a romp in the Caribbean, the play effortlessly wins over the audience, writes GORDON PARSONS
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
Love’s Labour’s Lost
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
“A PERFORMANCE of Love’s Labour’s Lost is a sort of entertainment to be valued rather for Shakespeare’s sake than for its own.” So suggested George Bernard Shaw — no great fan of the Bard. Director Emily Burns seems to have taken this advice to heart.
One mustn’t be too critical. At the expense of being accused of cultural heresy, I am inclined to believe that it is expecting too much of modern audiences, attuned to digital messaging languages, to engage with what is one of Shakespear’s most complex linguistic plays.
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