The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
Top-notch biblical folk-tale
SIMON PARSONS recommends a musical retelling of the Old Testament story of the sexual awakening of a young childless bride
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
Song of Songs
Park Theatre, London
INSPIRED by the Old Testament book also known as the Song of Solomon, this award-winning musical play sets out to explore the themes at the heart of the biblical collection of erotic love poems without the religious context.
The simple plot, told as a traditional folk story by the mad, wandering poetess of love is that of a young woman Tirzah, forced into a loveless, unfulfilling marriage who is only awakened to the intense power of desire with the arrival of mysterious love letters that spark her sexual liberation and empower her as a woman.
More from this author
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
ANGUS REID time-travels back to times when Gay Liberation was radical and allied seamlessly to an anti-racist, anti-establishment movement
ANGUS REID speaks to historian Siphokazi Magadla about the women who fought apartheid and their impact on South African society
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS salutes drama that registers how the impact of the sexual assault ripples out through every element of a family’s existence
STEVE JOHNSON recommends a new album of folksongs that tell stories of female empowerment and a desire for peace
LYNNE WALSH swoons over a remarkable musical that charts the changing occupiers of a brutalist block in Sheffield
SIMON PARSONS relishes the revival of a highly original play that explores the reinvention of a family that rejects traditional gender roles