Given some basic wisdom, directing for the stage is rather simple. The wisdom is that: “The audience don’t care.” They don’t care where the characters “went to school”, or what memory the actor is dredging up to influence his performance; …
Can a psychologist find you love?
We spend our lives chasing it, nurturing it, or watching it slip away. Yet the truth about love seems to dissolve in the light, evading any attempt at definition. Are we any closer than the famously love-struck ancient Greeks to …
The hidden desire of Tennessee Williams
Loss, a part of life, is certainly a part of literature, but it is seldom its motive force. Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard is not a drama of loss, but of wistfulness. Madame Ranevsky seems to mourn the imminent loss of …
American Gigolo is no longer sexy
Julian Kay is a thrillingly charming escort, as comfortable at international art auctions as he is on the pull-up bar. His speciality is older women, and when one asks him, in one of those old hotel restaurant booths so cushioned …
Virgins get more done
Feminist heroine, Catholic martyr, patron saint of France, LGBTQ icon. During the nearly six centuries since she was burned at the stake, Joan of Arc has been many things to many people. Today is no exception: she’s causing a furore …
Why we need Joe Orton
I witnessed a mildly Ortonesque moment at the Seven Dials Playhouse the other night. The theatre has recently rebranded the men’s and women’s toilets as “gender-neutral”, meaning that punters of both sexes are invited to play a little game if …
How fear consumed American theatre
We all know our consciousness is corrupt, and a long life, examined, brings the burden of regret, shame, and indeed a horror at our own actions that, at times, becomes scarcely bearable.
The theatre, and tragedy particularly, offers a median …