Category: theatre

Clockwork Orange? Peter Pan? Benny And Joon? Here’s a list of theatre opening this fall and what to look for…

Grime-streaked floodwater nearly slapped the 10-foot ceilings of the lower of the building’s two chambers, lurching up a winding stairway and foreclosing access to the lobby below. But when the New York-based playwright Rajiv Joseph, who recounted his experience by telephone on Wednesday, peered down into the morass on Aug. 27, the grief was instant and deflating.

Here’s the story of Giacomo Torelli, whose “pole-and-chariot” devices made the spectacular stage effects of Baroque theater and opera possible.

Rachel Shukert: “It’s easy for such a list to seem like a list of the ten best Broadway musicals, period. Prince’s contribution to the American theater is so vast, so elemental, that it feels a little bit like ranking the ten best colors. A case can be made that green is a better color than yellow, but without both of them, the rainbow as we know it would cease to exist. Still, I’m always up for a challenge, particularly one that will engage and perhaps, enrage, the show-biz multiverse known as my Twitter feed.”

Kabeiroi, which the company Punchdrunk says is a “theatrical adventure” inspired by the surviving fragments of Aeschylus’s play of that name, will require each pair of audience members (no singletons allowed) to travel to various venues around London (transit fare not included) and spend much of the time outdoors and/or on their feet. Warning: “This production is not suitable for women at any stage of pregnancy [or] individuals who are claustrophobic or have a nervous disposition.”

“There is little in the way of a narrative arc – just a steadily growing pile of bodies. … There is no one to root for, but there is little to root against, and the play just gets subsumed in a not particularly interesting form of misery. … And yet however much I scorn Macbeth, I’ll keep going back.” Jane Howard explains why (and, in the process, gives a critic’s credo).

“The closing is earlier than expected – the play had been scheduled to run until Jan. 7. But the run will still have been longer than that of many contemporary nonmusical productions; at the time of the show’s closing, it will have played 30 preview and 173 regular performances.”

There’s been a lot of talk about money lately – the gender pay gap, surcharges, escalating ticket prices and funding issues. The fringe theatre pricing model is just another topic that rears its head once a year. Some fringe boards have tried to address the problem, with free performances (Brighton and Edinburgh), incorporating venue hire costs into the participation fee (Reading Fringe) and including performer support resources in the submission fee (Brighton).

Lyn Gardner explains why a critic might not be able to publish a review – or might not, under certain circumstances, want to – and what good might come from those free tickets even if there’s no review.