Luigi Pirandello’s seminal Six Characters in Search of an Author, premiered in Rome in 1921, is the archetypal tough nut. Philosophising broadly on the nature of existence and identity, the work has been so influential that the now rather postmodern offspring it has spawned leave the original in danger of looking dated. Continue reading ››
Soldiers serving in Iraq live life on the edge - which is why playwright Gregory Burke was drawn to their testimony. The result, reports Sarah Jones, is explosive. Continue reading ››
The essence of Neil Gaiman’s cult picture book The Wolves in the Walls is that like monsters under the bed, forgotten childhood terrors are only a darkened room away. What works on the heavily illustrated page, however, is not so easy to transfer to the stage, but this, it seems, is just the kind of high-risk venture which the new National Theatre for Scotland is looking for. Their “Musical Pandemonium”, co-produced with the ever-inventive Improbable Theatre, has all the hallmarks of a bold statement of intent that strikes just the right note between edginess and populism. Continue reading ››
Andy Arnold’s new adaptation of the first book of Dante’s Divine Comedy takes a one-hour promenade through the hell beneath Glasgow’s Central station. The 14th-century classic updates seamlessly to modern times. You can’t help but wonder at how little human sin has changed in 700 years. Continue reading ››
John Clifford has done a sophisticated editing job - two years in the making - on Goethe’s epic, which, if staged in the original version, runs for something like 20 hours - without interval. At two hours each, Clifford’s two-part adaptation is pacey, contemporary and dramatic, running fast and loose with the original while retaining a crucially poetic bent amid the not-so-literary profanity. Continue reading ››
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