HOMESICK - New End
By ANNA MCHUGH

Dafna Rubinstein’s play, Homesick, must be one of the most tragic pieces currently showing in London. Intertwining stunning choreography with sensitive acting, the play is eloquent in its austere presentation of bereavment.
A year after the death in action of their only son Yoav, an Israeli soldier, the Rozen family is still drowning in grief.
Exposing this grief, and the tragedy which caused it, is Gil, a young army reporter researching decorated Israeli heroes. Yoav is still very much present, watching the grief of his parents and lover and attempting to deal with his own premature loss.
Rubinstein’s play shows the deadly mesh of ancient history, recent past and present that are so important to Israeli culture.
Vengeance and obligation are transmitted between generations, costing each one its sanity.
By showing the grief of one family among many, Homesick suggests that Israel cannot sustain this loss of its youth and the slaughter of its own peace of mind in the name of defence.
From the disconnected mother, suicidal father, defiant girlfriend and disillusioned reporter, protecting the state is costing each family member their soul. Israel seems populated by the dead and near-dead; even the ghosts are soldiers.
Particularly arresting are Grant Orviss as Yoav and Raquel Roylance as Sera, both assured and profound performances which should be the start of significant careers.
Mira Rubinstein’s choreography brings a dramatic and dynamic element to this unique production.

Until August 21
0870 033 2733

Energy abounds but Alan’s jokes are lost

KAFKA'S DICK - Upstairs At The Gatehouse
By ROSE LINCOLN

ALAN Bennett’s surreal comedy examines literary fame and the modern biographer’s obsession with gossip – here, the long and the short of Kafka’s dick.
This revival works because our curiosity about writers’ lives has been overfed since the play’s first performance in 1986 at the Royal Court. Think of Martin Amis’s dentistry bills if you can bear to.
The action opens in Prague in 1920 with the tubercular Kafka (Marc Nielson) half-heartedly asking his friend Max Brod (Edward Gower) to destroy his unpublished manuscripts on his death, an instruction Brod ignores.
It then moves to the present-day English home of Sydney (Jonathan Kemp) and Linda (Gailie Morrison), and his elderly father (Morris Perry) who fears being sent to an institution.
Sydney works in insurance, as did Kafka, and is writing an article about the Czech author for the Journal of Insurance Studies.
Is Sydney dreaming when Brod turns up at the door, the pet tortoise turns into Kafka, and the caller for his father turns out to be Kafka’s father (Mike Burnside)?
Kafka has no idea of his posthumous fame. Fifteen thousand books of learned criticism have been written about him. Even the Oxford English Dictionary has contains a word after him – Kafkaesque.
“Has it caught on?” asks Kafka’s father. “Caught on?” replies Brod. “Your son now has adjectival status in Japanese.”
The comic timing doesn’t always work and some of Bennett’s excellent jokes are lost. But there is tremendous energy about the performances. The play ends with a posthumous cocktail party for posterity. Leonard Woolf is there, so are the Virgin Mary, Gandhi, Wittgenstein, Dostoevsky, Proust, and Edith Cavell.
They dance the bossa nova. There are no animals in heaven, no allegory, no metaphors. Nobody says “hopefully”.There’s no fiction. No need.
“Heaven is going to be hell”, concludes
Kafka.

Until August 28
020 8340 3488

Please try to be funny for a change

SILENCE - Arcola
By CALUM ROCHE

CHRISTMAS came early to Dalston with an August panto set in the Dark Ages.
The opening scenes felt more like a 1980s Drill Hall production than a time-warp back to first century Kent.
But the play slowly gathered pace as the right-on two-dimensional wise-cracking gave way to writing that reached beyond the form Moira Buffini has chosen.
A noblewoman is sent to England to marry a lord who is not a teenage boy but girl, and a heathen to boot.
Vikings rampage, an ineffectual king finds God in lust and war, a surly thug experiments with telekinesis and a servant jacks in her job for Roger, played by Laurence Mitchell, who stood out as the priest whose repressed homosexuality gives way to a magic mushroom induced Nietzschean awakening: rejecting God and embracing heterosexuality.
Perhaps this is what is meant by Pyre Theatre’s aims of “challenging social, gender, and religious oppression”.
The competent cast did well under the restraints of the writing. And it was engaging to watch the characters develop throughout the play. But Ben Porter (Ethelred) seemed tired at times – perhaps finding his physicality too early on in rehearsals. And although Merryn Owen as Eadric handled the sublime to ridiculous asides with particular glee, much of the laughter was hollow.
Silence was written in 1999 and its frivolity already looks dated, though it’s themes of war and religious fervour are now more pertinent. I’d like to see Buffini stop censoring herself with humour and have a crack at something with greater substance. That, or just be funny.

Until August 27
020 7503 1646

Only historians will object here

MARY STUART - Donmar
By ROBERT TANITCH

PHYLLIDA Lloyd’s excellent revival of Mary Stuart with Harriet Walter as Queen Elizabeth and Janet McTeer as Mary is a major event. The political and romantic intrigues make for riveting theatre.
Mary Stuart, the deposed Queen of Scotland, seeks asylum in England and is imprisoned. As a Catholic, she is an inspiration to fellow Catholics and therefore a constant danger to the Protestant Elizabeth Tudor. Burleigh, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, urges the queen to sign Mary’s death warrant.
Young Mortimer, in love with Mary, plots her escape. He seeks the help of the Earl Leicester, Mary’s former lover, who is having an affair with Elizabeth. Leicester’s romantic involvement with both women is Schiller’s invention.
The big scene is the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth, a battle royal, which also never happened. Only historians will object.
Mary taunted by the sexually jealous queen, loses her head and calls her a bastard. But, perhaps surprisingly, it is Elizabeth who emerges the tragic character.
The play is excellently acted on a bare stage. The men wear grey, double-breasted suits. Only the queens are in period costume. Walter and McTeer are absolutely splendid.
David Horovitch’s dangerous Burleigh is very impressive. So, too, is Guy Henry as sly Leicester, who saves his own skin with breathtaking effrontery.
Mary Stuart is the most exciting thriller in London. Do not miss it on any account.

Until September 3
0870 060 6624

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