Mert Dilek - Page 2

If every marriage is a duel, then those of Bluebeard are full-on battles. The trailblazing German choreographer Pina Bausch's Bluebeard takes us into a mental war zone where the serrated edges of conjugal life cut deep. Radiating Bausch's singular vision and stunning theatricality, the 1977 piece receives its UK premiere at Sadler's Wells in a haunting revival by her company Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Having premiered at the Almeida in 2017 to critical acclaim, Mike Bartlett's play Albion returns home with a spellbinding revival directed by Rupert Goold. Rightly billed as a play for our times, Albion appears to have grown in its resonance as a deliciously layered commentary on Britain's thorny relationship to its identity and history.

Hot on the heels of Trevor Nunn's recent production at Jermyn Street Theatre, Samuel Beckett's plays continue to grace London in all their bleak splendour. Starring Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe, Richard Jones' captivating production at the Old Vic brings together Endgame and Rough for Theatre II in a provocative diptych about the perils and pleasures of retrospection.    

When even a single play by Samuel Beckett might become a test of endurance for an audience, putting three of them together risks missing the mark. But as Trevor Nunn's superb Beckett Triple Bill at Jermyn Street Theatre confirms, it's a risk worth taking, and the results might be astounding. This potent line-up of three Beckett one-acts about memory and old age allows each play to clarify and enrich the other two, giving rise to an evening that is gloriously bigger than the sum of its parts.

Rags the Musical was a flop when it first opened on Broadway in 1986. Which is why, one suspects, it kept on receiving a series of revisions over the subsequent decades. The most recent of these is now on display in Bronagh Lagan's assured production at the Park Theatre, first performed at Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre in March 2019. David Thompson's revised book, Stephen Schwartz' poignant lyrics, and Charles Strouse's eclectic music (with echoes of ragtime and jazz) join forces to present a fluent rags-to-riches story, but even this reimagined version remains far too formulaic in its portrayal of a group of Jewish immigrants in the 1910's New York.

For those on stage, an opening night can be the stuff of nightmares. In Curtains a?" the acclaimed duo John Kander and Fred Ebb's 2006 musical a?" the nightmare turns real when a lead actor gets murdered right after curtain call. So begins a comedic, entertaining whodunit that is chock-full of showbiz intrigue and backstage drama.

Mary Poppins has descended once again into our midst, and she is as amiably mischievous as ever. Based on the stories of P. L. Travers and the iconic 1964 Disney film, the Sherman Brothers' 2004 musical (with a book by Julian Fellowes) is back in the West End with several new songs, a buzzing cast, and pitch-perfect choreography.

Following his acclaimed performance in The Hunt this summer, Danny Kirrane has returned to the Almeida Theatre for Mike Bartlett's adaptation of Maxim Gorky's Vassa, directed by Tinuke Craig. He spoke to BroadwayWorld about the play, his role, and the company's rehearsal process.

It's not been a long time since Clare Barron took both New York and London by storm with her 2018 play Dance Nation, whose portrayal of a group of teenage competitive dancers had gloriously ruptured into feminist fireworks. Her next work to appear on a London stage is not a new play, but an earlier piece titled Dirty Crusty. Directed by Jay Miller, this hyped-up production at The Yard thrusts itself upon the audience with a near-reckless openness, but consistently proves devoid of anything that could transform its daring, even subversive, spirit into meaningful substance.

How would one go about stealing a work of art from a gallery? Written and directed by Jack Bradfield, the Poltergeist Theatre's new play Art Heist a?" now in London after a sold-out run at Edinburgh Fringe a?" begins by contemplating this very question. And the answers seem obvious and ready to hand, at least for an unnamed authorial figure (played by Alice Boyd) intent on controlling the narratives of three art thieves who break into the same gallery at the same time.

Raves are often chaotic, messy, and inscrutable. Not so much in Gisèle Vienne's Crowd, which dissects the life cycle of a rave with transfixing precision and visceral clarity. Having premiered in Strasbourg in 2017, Crowd receives its first UK production at Sadler's Wells, where it opens this year's Dance Umbrella Festival. A continuous soundscape of early 90's techno-trance music provides an electrifying stimulus to 15 performers who portray with admirable command the eponymous group of raving youth.