I'm in London! My checked luggage, alas, is not. Fortunately I brought a carry-on that included, among other things, two changes of clothes, so the situation is not as dire as it might otherwise be. I'm really ready for my luggage to be delivered, though ( Read more... )

1) The Winter's Tale is a fascinating play, but it is also, as Geoffrey Tennant might say, extraordinarily difficult to stage effectively. On Monday night, I saw a production that was pretty much flawless. It was beautiful and surprising and convincing and - astonishing, really.

2) Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is probably my single favorite play. I ( Read more... )

Gillian Anderson fucking OWNED this play. The entire cast was terrific, but Anderson - I just don't even have words right now.

I will try to be more coherent when I've had a chance to reflect and to re-read the text, but oh my god. Just - wow. WOW.

1) I am not sure that the Bertram problem in All's Well That Ends Well is resolvable; and I am increasingly convinced that that's actually Shakespeare's point. Also, it really helps to think of All's Well less as a problem comedy than as an early romance - a point that the National's current production emphasizes clearly and cleverly from the set ( Read more... )

1) Being moved to tears by life-sized horse puppets? Awesome.

2) Seeing Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot? Also awesome. Though in a rather different way. Heh.

I'm in London. I've already had Turkish food, Thai food, fizzy lemonade, crumpets, and Hobnobs (though not, mercifully, all at once) and I'm going to the theater tonight. I've also had several chances to test my new folding umbrella, which works exactly as it should and has not thus far blown inside out (unlike the one I brought two years ago ( Read more... )

Surfacing briefly to report that so far this week I've seen two brilliant productions of terrific new plays, a so-so Othello at the Globe, and a mindblowingly good Macbeth (Patrick Stewart in the title role) which I am looking forward to telling truepenny all about; I've visited the British Museum (briefly), Cortauld, National Portrait Gallery, National ( Read more... )

I'm in London! And I've commandeered renenet's computer in order to post, so I'll have to be quick ( Read more... )

I'm back from London. I will be trying to put together some reports over the next few weeks. Likely topics include theatre (eleven plays in fourteen days), musicals (two, in addition to the other theatre), museums and art exhibits (the Courtauld, the V & A, the Colour After Klein exhibit at the Barbican), gardens (Regent's Park, the Chelsea Physic ( Read more... )

The Hanging Man is one of the few contemporary plays we saw this June - and already I'm not doing the show justice, because "play" is much too small a word to sum up this bizarre and wonderful production.

( The Hanging Man )