MATTHEW HAWKINS witnesses a contemporary ballet that represents human life as subjected to artificial intelligence
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Mexican take on political ossification
by Marwa Paikan
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
I’ll Melt the Snow off a Volcano with a Match
The Pit, Barbican,
London EC2
4/5
A theatre group researching the background of Mexico’s political system comes across a forgotten book, The Institutionalised Revolution — it fascinates them and so initiates two intertwined narratives, one — the life of Natalia the author of the said book, a militant activist of the teachers’ union and, the second — the politics of modern Mexico.
The point of departure is the extraordinarily long-lasting hold on power by the Party of Institutionalised Revolution (PRI), which in 1929 appropriated the revolutionary ideals of Cardenas, Zapata and Villa for the national bourgeoisie and kept repackaging them every six years as mass consumption election fodder.
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