Sarah Crompton — Theater Critic

Sheppard’s direction is also cleverly paced, letting big scenes – Maureen’s “arty” performance to demand proper housing for the homeless, the meeting at the Life Café – unfold with panache, while keeping the focus on the individual stories that are being told. The actors are all are terrific. Travis Ross constantly suggests the man Roger might have become, if illness hadn’t destroyed his prospects; Alexa Lopez is a brilliantly agonised Mimi while Lazy Violet suggests just the right amount of kookiness for Maureen.

Groff is superb in his Shakespearean debut, eyes flashing both with merriment and righteous indignation, taking the verse with astonishing speed and verve. His Rosalind is clever, proud and commanding, always in charge. There’s a glorious moment when the production takes a line about her accent – Groff is speaking in his native American – and turns it into a joke; ironically, given his Tony Award-winning success on Broadway as a musical star, he doesn’t get to sing but all his charisma is channelled into a quicksilver portrayal.

The problem for the actors playing the Bliss family – a shock-haired Richard E Grant as the egotistical novelist husband, Will Close as the posturing painter son Simon, and Ophelia Lovibond as the daughter Sorel – is that they are required both to be monstrous and adorable. It’s a difficult balance to pull off, though Simon in particular is gifted with some gem-like lines. His observation that “it’s so silly of people to try to cultivate the artistic temperament” while holding a paint brush and wearing a smock is a particular pleasure.

Marianne Elliott’s direction is full of sensitive, thoughtful touches. From the very start, she makes it clear that this marriage between George, who is bogged down in the history department of a New England college where Martha’s father is the president, is not a dead thing. There’s a spark between them. Anderson’s Martha may jeer and bray at him, but Crudup’s shambling George can make her laugh, and she genuinely wants him to kiss her as the guests arrive.

Graham clearly loves and admires Keynes, and Kinnear creates an unforgettable portrait of a man who bestrode his times with a gentle modesty that belied his cleverness. But the play’s lesson for today isn’t only economic. The entire production is a plea for the value of beauty, of art, of dance, of lives that are full of something more than the day-to-day grind. That was Keynes’ greatest lesson: it is important to know how to live as well as how to spend. This is art about the importance of art and is both uplifting and hopeful.

Hoss and Blanchett, so convincing in their previous performance opposite one another as a couple in the film Tár, relish every moment. As Electra, Hoss’s purposeful walk, her downturned mouth, and rising fury perfectly suggests a woman in the grip of mania, exuding “the holy stench of grief.” Her ability as Elisabet to reflect thought and feeling while staying utterly still is riveting; her strength and vulnerabilities are both delicately charted. As Clytemnestra, Blanchett is imperious and frightening, as Alma, needy, ingratiating and slightly terrifying. Ella Lily Hyland and Patrick Robinson make up the onstage quartet, in unrewarding but necessary roles.

The mischievous Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are, in the hands of Danny Nattrass and Briana Craig, sparkly, swift-footed acrobats; Bustopher Jones (Elliot Broadfoot), who likes his food, has a hoop skirt of roundness beneath a pristine satin shirt; Matthew Caputo’s Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, has a sequin-highlighted orange uniform and a real train. Most excitingly, Jet Yau’s Mister Mistoffelees is a boneless breakdancer, turning on his head while throwing fireworks into the sky, while Diante Lodge’s Macavity actually sets the stage alight with real fire.

tone’s writing is entirely cogent until the concluding act, which crams too much in; it simply isn’t as rigorous as the others. Alice is particularly poorly served; she is a misfit, socially awkward, never quite sure of her place in the story, which feels a waste of Sheehy’s wonderful comic timing and capacity for suffering. But his direction is impeccable, constantly ratcheting up the pressure while allowing the characters space to breathe. Montie has a wonderful moment where, torn from her American home, she dreams of returning across the sea. Parker seizes it with trance-like delicacy, bringing sympathy for a character who elicits little. Morrissey too finds the sorrow beneath Chris’s bullish exterior, suggesting his melancholy with a little stoop of the shoulders, a raise of the head.

Sheader’s approach is to re-emphasise the boldness, to let the music carry the drama, and to let character emerge. The approach pays dividends in Ryder’s Jesus, a performance defined by his popstar presence and by the soar of his voice in that falsetto register. People respond to him because he seems genuine and nice; he brings both those qualities to his portrayal in his West End debut, but also finds true drama as the show reaches its un-triumphal conclusion of sacrifice and suffering.

The opening line of the play is “F**k the patriarchy”, and part of the cleverness of Miller’s writing and the intelligence of Pike’s performance is that, beneath that confident pride in her achievements, her sense that she is taking on the male establishment and winning, Jessica is ignoring the complexity of a world that is shifting beneath her feet. Her assertive feminism, her belief that she is a good judge, both publicly and privately, is suddenly challenged and revealed to be delusional.

Gorky’s point is political. These lawyers, doctors and engineers are the children of the poor. They have clawed their way up to wealth and respectability, yet now they have achieved superiority they pay no heed to those still struggling. The doctor Maria Lvovna (Mitchell), is the sole voice of the liberal conscience, constantly needling the others about doing good. Her friend, Varvara (Sophie Rundle, wonderfully passive yet seething) sees the fatal ennui and waste but finds herself trapped within the misogynistic and limited world represented by her husband Bassov (Ready, charming, alarming and very funny).

Hainsworth is wonderful in the way she registers all Thomasina’s longing, her mischievous cleverness and innocent love flashing across her face and Angus Cooper makes her latter-day heir, mathematical Valentine, full of awkward affection and anxiety. But the attractions between Puwanarajah’s odiously self-satisfied Bernard and Farzad’s gentler Hannah register less strongly. They seem a little self-consciously smart; the lines between them don’t always flex and fly.

Gough, such an intelligent actress, doesn’t have quite enough to do with Amy, whose principles mean she opposes any kind of violence, though she sings beautifully in the contemporary songs by Bruce Springsteen and others that punctuate the scenes. That’s partly because the central debates of the film, the agonised wrestling with what is truly right, are slightly muted here as the play tracks Kane’s quest for support from various groups of townspeople. Crudup, deprived of Gary Cooper’s pensive close-ups, needs one great speech to outline his position. He keeps saying he must do what he must do, but the moral thrust of the film is somehow missing.

It’s a brilliantly conceived idea, and often very funny. The joke about Muriel’s inedible cooking – “There was talk of a dessert and I am afraid I lost my nerve,” says Bill, explaining his sudden absence – becomes a symbol of the lumpy, unedifying nature of the life in which Susan is trapped, where she no longer loves her husband and the best he can manage in return is “I’m still reasonably fond of you.” Ayckbourn’s writing straddles the line between light laughter and domestic trauma with considerable finesse, but the second act darkens as Susan’s desperation rises and even her other life no longer provides the escape she longs for.

There is a sliver pathos in Mary as she convinces herself, melodramatically, that she is in love and is about to be a stage success which Park allows to emerge. If you squint hard and at a distance, then there might be a sense that the play is examining the frustration of people who are neglected. But not really. This is a piece almost entirely without sub-text, a celebration of the camp, queer humour that Escola has made their own.

There is a sliver pathos in Mary as she convinces herself, melodramatically, that she is in love and is about to be a stage success which Park allows to emerge. If you squint hard and at a distance, then there might be a sense that the play is examining the frustration of people who are neglected. But not really. This is a piece almost entirely without sub-text, a celebration of the camp, queer humour that Escola has made their own.

Fein and Scutt collaborated last year on a radical and revelatory Fiddler on the Roof, and here they once again work with the musical supervisor Mark Aspinall to make Sondheim not only look but sound fresh, with Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations dialling up the darkness inside the lyrical score. Adam Fisher provides a terrifyingly good sound design that makes the appearance of a Giant absolutely convincing, even though you never see her as she tramples the set, leaving a desolate landscape in place of the glorious possibility of the original forest.

On stage, it works wonderfully, providing propulsive action, high comedy, and just the right dash of poignancy. Tom Pye’s designs, back by Neil Austin’s thrilling lighting, Ash J Woodward’s video design, and Gabriella Slade’s richly textured costumes, create a world where everything is possible, moving seamlessly from the domestic chaos of 32 Windsor Gardens to street scenes that unfold in effortless perspective and finally to the Gothic strangeness of the Natural History Museum, its famous dinosaur skeleton peeping out of the backcloth.

But the three central performances, all in their different ways, fail to gel. Harewood’s Othello is impressive in stillness; the moments when he is gazing at Desdemona full of wonder hint beautifully at the depth of feeling he contains. But there’s no directorial attempt to explain his sudden loss of confidence in her – always the crux of any Othello – or the moment when Iago’s poisonous insinuations suddenly infect him.

But the three central performances, all in their different ways, fail to gel. Harewood’s Othello is impressive in stillness; the moments when he is gazing at Desdemona full of wonder hint beautifully at the depth of feeling he contains. But there’s no directorial attempt to explain his sudden loss of confidence in her – always the crux of any Othello – or the moment when Iago’s poisonous insinuations suddenly infect him.

But it is the acting, particularly of the Marys, that carries the day. Riseborough is an actor who always seems to be missing a skin; she brings all that raw intensity and eyes full of emotion to the scenes where Mary battles with divorce and despair; McEwen captures both the underlying instability and the bold determination to reject male expectations that drives Mary to both therapy and casual, pointless affairs. In their single scenes, both Worthington-Cox and Weir seize their moment with coruscating honesty and openness. Apart from Quarshie, all the men are ciphers, but Eden Epstein is compelling as Mary’s mother Roberta.

The most interesting sections – at least if you care about Shakespeare – are those which probe the differences between the two writers. Marlowe insists on inserting his own bold personality and controversial beliefs into every line he wrote while Shakespeare’s instinct is to disappear, to lose himself in every character. The moment when the two men act out Shakepeare’s inserted scene in Henry VI showing the love between a husband and wife is remarkably tender. The play’s concluding note, that Shakespeare consistently wrote Marlowe (who died in a tavern brawl in 1593 at the age of 29) back to life is intriguing.

Ultimately, like it or loathe it (which some people will), this Evita is an event with a capital E, an assertion of the unique power of theatre to become both story and spectacle, to draw people in... Zegler holds everyone in the palm of her hand, ignoring all distractions... ‘It’s something for all of us.’

Hercules is antiseptic fun, carefully manufactured. It isn’t a bad night out, but it’s like a fizzy drink, lively on the tongue but ultimately unsatisfying.

Animated by music by Will Butler (formerly of Arcade Fire), played and recorded live by the actors on stage, it’s a probing examination of what it means to make art, and why it matters that someone should. As the songs soar and lives collapse, it asks questions about relationships, the cost of things, and the value of seeking joy or giving in to despair. It is almost existential in its concerns, yet its overlapping, quickfire dialogue is both funny, pungent and entirely naturalistic. I think it is a masterpiece.