25 April 2018. Triple Bill at the ROH

This was a very varied triple bill. It comprised the very modern Obsidian Tear, choreographed by Wayne McGregor, the very traditional Margueritem and Amand by Frederick Ashton and the purely pleaurable Elite Syncopations by Kenneth MacMillan.

21 April 2018. Steps back in time at the Barbican

This brief programme of early Kenneth MacMillan works in the Pit was absorbing. We sat in close proximity to the dancers as they performed two very emotional works that had not been seen for many years. The first, House of Birds, starred Meaghan Grace Hinkis and Thiago Soares. The second - Laiderette - saw Soares paired with Francesca Hayward. This told the sad and emotionally charged story of an outsider who is picked upon and ultimately humiliated by her colleagues. Between these two pieces was an extremely brief Danses Concertantes, the whole event lasting a little over 45 minutes.

Afterwards there was a very interesting discussion led by Kenneth MacMillan's widow and including viviana Durante who had produced the event and Maymi Hotta who had retrieved the works by painstakingly watching 16mm film.

17 April 2018. Macbeth at the National Theatre

This production of Macbeth had not received good reviews. The Director, Rufus Norris, was accused of mauling it somewhat. The set was extremely bleak and the witches' rather animal noises at the opening was quite off-putting, I agree. However, overall the acting by Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff in particular made it a worthwhile evening for me. The problems for me are more with the play itself - particularly Macbeth's indecent haste in doing away with Duncan as well as the rather implausible way in which he murders Duncan's two guards. He and Lady Macbeth appear when Lennox and MacDuff arrive in the morning as if nothing had happened; then somehow he had murdered the guards in a fury at them murdering the King. That aside, I thought Anne-Marie Duff conveyed particularly well the ruthlessness and single-mindedness of Lady Macbeth - though again the play gives no build up to her character before the witches give Macbeth the idea that he will be King.

16 April 2018. The Writer at the Almeida

I find it quite hard to know what to make of this play. It felt quite experimental and held my attnetion most of the time. The words themselves were at times poetic. However, the points it made seemed quite trite and I'm not sure I properly understood what this writer - Ella Hickson - was trying to achieve with some of the twists and turns - e.g., the introduction of a real baby on the set.
We start with the relatively easy half hour of dialogue between a male director and a young aspiring writer in which she treats him to an angry feminist rant about the male domination of theatre and how impossible it is for a young writer top know if her work is really any good if the approving director also asks her to sleep with him.
Then the supposed very awkward female writer and overbearing male director of this piece appear and answer a Q&A with (planted) members of the audience.
Next we have a vignette of the life of the writer who has been offered the chance to write a film script. Her football-boot selling boyfriend is exasperated at their reluctance to accept the role - so exasperated that he empties their meal onto her laptop.
Then there is a piece in a forest where the writer gets into lesbianism.
The director comes on and says that the play needs a proper ending and the forest scene is too weird.
The proper ending is the writer and her girlfriend living a quite bourgeois life and experimenting with a strap-on / dildo.
It was definitely well-acted but I'm afraid that if the purpose of writing is - as the play suggests - to change the world, this piece failed for me.

9 April 2018. The Great Wave at the National Theatre.

This upsetting play is apparently based on truth. It tells the story of two sisters Hanako and Reiko whose quarrels as teenagers leads to the fateful night that Hanako storms out to go to the beach, never to be seen again. It turns out she has been abducted by North Koreans who use her to teach one of their nationals to be be Japanese so that she can operate as a spy. Hanako in turn is forced to become Korean and eventually has a daughter by a man she is paired with. Meanwhile, back in Japan, the family lead a relentless campaign to get the Japanese Government to acknowledge the abductions. Pushing particularly hard is the boy (Tetsuo) who used to visit the sisters and who provoked Hanako's fateful trip to the beach on the night of the abduction. Both he and Reiko - who had spoken harsh words that night - are consumed by an unremitting guilt.
Several years later, the Korean spy is arrested and confesses to having been taught by Hanako. At last her existence is confirmed. Now, and eventually, the governments act and the Koreans allow the return of those Japanese who wish to make the journey. The family are rewarded by the arrival of Hanako's daughter but not Hanako herself. She has been embroiled in recriminations over some doodlings by her daughter who has been denounced by her schoolmates. The grand-daughter is some comfort for Etsuko - Hanako's by now dying mother but we are left feeling her pain and filling in the gaps of the decision-taking that Hanako has gone through.
It is an absorbing and fast-paced evening that makes full use of the revolving stage with the Japanese and Korean locations appearing and disappearing with immediacy. I found it an upsetting and thought-provoking experience - particularly at the level of how stupid actions (the rows and dares of the abduction evening) can have horrific consequences. Sometimes the lines and delivery felt a bit clunky but that really did not matter to the overall impact of the evening.

6 April 2018. Bernstein Triple Bill at ROH

The triple bill to mark Bernstein's centenary opened with Wayne McGregor's Yugen. Everything about its brief 19 minutes was spectacular. The opening with the dancers silhouetted against light boxes certainly had the wow factor. The dancing was rivetting, especially, Sarah Lamb. The music was the choral Chichester Psalms featuring a male solo treble. A great start to the evening.
On the other hand, the revival of Liam Scarlett's The Age of Anxiety left me less moved. It is danced in costume and the story of four lonely souls getting drunk did not engage me I'm afraid.
The final piece - Corbantic Games - by Christopher Wheeldon - was more to my taste. It is in five movements featuring various combinations of dancers. It was enjoyable to watch though I found the breaks rather disjointing. 

27 March 2018. Summer and Smoke at Almeida

This rave-reviewed production by Rebecca Frecknall of Tennessee Williams's play was engaging from the start. The audience is presented with a semi-circle of nine pianos from which the actors emerge and retreat. The star of the evening is undoubtedly Patsy Ferran who plays Alma, a sheltered daughter of a pastor. She has longings for John (played by Matthew Needham), the boy next door who is following in his father's footsteps as a doctor.  The play essentially plays out the evolution of their doomed never-to-start relationship. First John wants Alma; then, once she is ready, he has married someone else.
It is a thoroughly absorbing evening but frankly it was not one that I found myself thinking about nor remembering for long in any detail. The point of the reviews also seemed to concentrate very much on the quality of the acting.