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The after effects of rape
SIMON PARSONS salutes drama that registers how the impact of the sexual assault ripples out through every element of a family’s existence
Miles Molan, Rosie Day and Tok Stephen in When It Happens to You
[Mark Douet]
Banksy’s identity may have been published – but was the investigation in the public interest, asks PETER BENGTSEN
RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist
CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile
SYLVIA HIKINS welcomes a survey of successful contemporary worker co-operatives and economy-based co-operative systems
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends the staging of this Wagnerian classic minus one or two insignificant quibbles
When It Happens To You
Park Theatre, London
AMERICAN author Tawni O’Dell’s deeply personal memoir about the rape of her grown-up daughter Esme and the shattering after-effects on both her and her children must have been an important cathartic exercise when first performed in New York, with O’Dell playing herself, but risks being too intimate and personalised to fully work on stage.
With Amanda Abbington at the heart of the European Premiere taking Tawni’s role as Tara, Esme’s divorced mother, the play’s simple narrative style becomes more than just a dramatic reading as the enduring impact of the sexual assault ripples out through every element of the family’s existence.
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