ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Odious comparison between now and the fascist '30s
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
COMPARISONS with the state of the world now and the 1930s are currently difficult to ignore and many are not without merit.
With Trump installed in the White House, the far right on the rise in Germany and overt state violence returning in Spain, it’s easy to see the similarities. And, as the rather transparent title of Craft Theatre’s latest production evidences, its aim is to make those comparisons explicit on stage.
Thus, when naive public relations student Clare (Louise Goodfield) stumbles across a copy of what was supposedly Hitler’s favourite play — Hanns Johst’s Schlagetter — she cannot help but see the parallels with today on every page. Anger begins to take over as she looks for solutions in all the wrong places and her life drifts into predictable ruin.
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