All stories by Susannah Clapp on BroadwayStars

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Consent review – justice under interrogation by Susannah Clapp

Dorfman, LondonNina Raine adroitly tackles barristers’ struggles with the truth as the audience becomes the jury in a rape caseMore than Consent. Heartfelt approval. It is hard to overemph…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM

42nd Street review – move over, La La Land by Susannah Clapp

Theatre Royal Drury Lane, LondonIf it’s a real musical you’re after, this is the one to watchForget La La Land. If you want to see hot hoofing, go to Mark Bramble’s production of 42nd …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:02AM

The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? review – an unappetising plea for liberalism by Susannah Clapp

Theatre Royal, HaymarketDamian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo do their best with Edward Albee’s provocative play, but it is too knowing for its own goodIn the seven months since Edward Albee die…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:02AM
Sunday, March 19, 2017

My Country: A Work in Progress review – a laudable but limp look at Brexit Britain by Susannah Clapp

Dorfman, London Rufus Norris and Carol Ann Duffy’s verbatim drama includes a variety of voices but is already out of date in our bitterly divided nationOne of Rufus Norris’s aims since h…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM

My Brilliant Friend review – intensity wins through by Susannah Clapp

Rose theatre, Kingston upon ThamesCatherine McCormack and Niamh Cusack ignite April De Angelis’s five-hour staging of Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan sagaWhat a nerve. To think that Elena Fe…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM

The Miser review – a Molière mugfest by Susannah Clapp

Garrick, London Heavily laboured jokes sink Griff Rhys Jones and Lee Mack in this 17th-century comedy of mannersIt may be that, all unwittingly, I have had a farsectomy. I – mostly – app…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03AM
Sunday, March 12, 2017

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead review – a great double act by Susannah Clapp

Old Vic, LondonDaniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire’s split-second timing ensures this well-judged production of Stoppard’s classic fizzes with lifeWhen as a schoolgirl I saw Rosencrantz …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AM

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? review – Staunton and Hill have a bawl by Susannah Clapp

Harold Pinter, LondonPrepare for a high-wire showdown in James Macdonald’s fine production of Albee’s caustic classicNo one is going to accuse Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? of being …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AM

Limehouse review – the gang of four revisited by Susannah Clapp

Donmar Warehouse, LondonOutstanding performances, including Roger Allam as Roy Jenkins, enliven a timely drama about the birth of the SDPIt was an Alice Through the Looking Glass press night…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AM
Sunday, March 5, 2017

The Hypocrite review – hard-work humour from Richard Bean by Susannah Clapp

Hull Truck theatre, HullMark Addy and Caroline Quentin star in Richard Bean’s gag-heavy satirical tale of a 17th-century city governor navigating the outbreak of civil warThere is exemplar…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AM

Hamlet review – Andrew Scott is a truly sweet prince by Susannah Clapp

Almeida, LondonScott brings total empathy to the title role in Robert Icke’s inspired production Robert Icke is one of the most important forces in today’s theatre. He blew the dust from…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AM
Sunday, February 26, 2017

Othello review – sheer force of feeling by Susannah Clapp

Tobacco Factory, BristolPowerful performances from fine young actors bring fresh power to this sensual, subtle reinventionRichard Twyman is not resident at the Tobacco Factory. Yet his marve…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AM

A Midsummer Night’s Dream review – a dark and muddy vision by Susannah Clapp

Young Vic, LondonIt’s all mire, ire and menace in Joe Hill-Gibbins’s heavy-going productionMud sticks. The most immediately striking feature of Joe Hill-Gibbins’s staging of A Midsumme…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AM

Twelfth Night review – on high gend by Susannah Clapp

Olivier, LondonTamsin Greig is a magnetic Malvolia in an extravagant production that gleefully refocuses Shakespeare’s comedyShe is a 21st-century puritan: her religion is herself; her bod…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AM
Sunday, February 19, 2017

Beware of Pity review – found in translation by Susannah Clapp

Barbican, London Simon McBurney’s fizzing take on the novel that inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel transcends language barriers… and can still be seen onlineBefore I was a theatre critic…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM

Richard III review – a thoroughly modern game of thrones by Susannah Clapp

Barbican, LondonLars Eidinger is a visceral, manipulative monarch in Thomas Ostermeier’s explosive German-language productionThomas Ostermeier has been director of Schaubühne Berlin since…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM

Travesties – early Stoppard feels like new by Susannah Clapp

Apollo, LondonTom Hollander proves wonderfully potty in Stoppard’s 1974 play, given a startling new lease of life in this age of alternative factsEarly Tom Stoppard plays are having a stag…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM
Sunday, February 12, 2017

Sex With Strangers review – a night to forget by Susannah Clapp

Hampstead theatre, LondonDespite fine performances, Laura Eason’s 2009 play about two writers having a fling is too rooted in its timeLaura Eason’s Sex With Strangers was first staged by…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM

Vault festival review – light in the tunnels by Susannah Clapp

The Vaults, LondonFrom the Great Gatsby to Martian odysseys and life in a refugee camp, south London plays host to worlds of possibilitySince 2011, the traditionally torpid theatrical weeks …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM

The Glass Menagerie – fluid and radiant by Susannah Clapp

Duke of York’s, London Kate O’Flynn is outstanding in John Tiffany’s beautiful staging of Tennessee Williams’s breakthrough play about a fragile girl and her gentleman callerIs there…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AM
Thursday, February 9, 2017

Hamlet review – Maxine Peake is a delicately ferocious Prince of Denmark by Susannah Clapp

Royal Exchange, ManchesterThe gender switches in Sarah Frankcom’s Hamlet may unsettle for a moment but they do not distort the play• At her Peake: a stage career in pictures• Michael B…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:36AM
Sunday, February 5, 2017

Death Takes a Holiday review – a cut-price package by Susannah Clapp

Charing Cross theatre, LondonEven musical maestro Thom Southerland’s gifts can’t help this flight of fancy rise above its silly premiseThom Southerland has made himself a master of the u…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AM

Narvik review – the sound of the second world war by Susannah Clapp

Home, ManchesterLizzie Nunnery’s play with music captures bittersweet memories of the North Atlantic convoys as documentary meets melancholy balladNarvik is not like anything else I have h…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AM
Sunday, January 29, 2017

In the Depths of Dead Love review – pale and uninteresting by Susannah Clapp

Print Room at the Coronet, LondonOnly the row over an all-white cast, in a tale set in ancient China, quickens the pulse of this arduous playThe Print Room has been in the middle of a “yel…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:04AM

Us/Them review – an evocative retelling of the Beslan school siege by Susannah Clapp

Dorfman, LondonCarly Wijs’s 2016 Edinburgh fringe hit tells the story of the 2004 Russian school siege with clear-eyed audacityUs/Them: hostages and captors; Russians and Chechens; childre…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03AM

The Convert review – full-blooded, with a dash of melodrama by Susannah Clapp

Gate, LondonA young woman’s conversion to Catholicism in 19th-century Rhodesia speaks volumes in Danai Gurira’s bold tale of oppression and identityThe Convert is enough to give historic…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03AM
Sunday, January 22, 2017

Winter Solstice review – beware the sincere stranger by Susannah Clapp

Orange Tree, Richmond, SurreyA silver-tongued visitor is not what he seems in Roland Schimmelpfennig’s subtle exploration of the rise of the new rightWinter Solstice is, in a way, the perf…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AM

Picnic at Hanging Rock review – bright and mysterious by Susannah Clapp

Lyceum, EdinburghA vivid adaptation of the classic Australian tale about the disappearance of a group of schoolgirls in 1900When Joan Lindsay wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock in 1967, she create…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AM
Sunday, January 1, 2017

Art review – 90s ‘comedy’ becomes an old master by Susannah Clapp

Old Vic, LondonRufus Sewell is poised and sleek in Yasmina Reza’s tale of three friends and a very expensive white canvasIn 1998, Yasmina Reza won a Laurence Olivier award for Art. The pri…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AM

Dreamgirls review – soulful rage brings whoops of joy by Susannah Clapp

Savoy theatre, London Amber Riley, of Glee fame, leads three wronged women in a show that packs a punchOnce upon a time, it was romance that roused the audiences in musicals. In Dreamgirls i…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AM
Monday, December 26, 2016

Escaped Alone review – small talk and everyday terror from Caryl Churchill by Susannah Clapp

Royal Court, LondonCaryl Churchill’s magnificent new play unleashes an intricate, elliptical, acutely female view of the apocalypseSo which is the best moment in Caryl Churchill’s sizzli…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:04AM