MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Devastating theatre offers a totalised view of humanity
ANGUS REID recommends a production that explores the urgent need to be reacquainted with the dangers of repression and the difficult path to selfhood
CONSUMMATE: Lorn MacDonald as Sigismundo
[Ryan Buchanan]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
Life Is A Dream
Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
THREE centuries before psychoanalysis, Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon proposed his own “interpretation of dreams.”
After a trauma that has disposed of the father and left the mother in charge, the thing she most fears has been locked away. This is the price of courtly stability and a fragile peace in the realm.
Life Is A Dream opens when the trapdoor is flung back and the unconscious emerges to take revenge in the form of a snarling humanoid, a bundle of primitive drives supercharged by sex and aggression.
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PAUL FOLEY revels in the coolest, most joyful piece of theatre you’ll get this summer
ANGUS REID applauds the potential of an ambitious show about Gaza, and encourages it to keep its nerve
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship