Friday 5 December 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests


Wasted journey

Wednesday, 16th July 2008

Free Outgoing (Royal Court), Fanshen (295 Regent St), Frozen (Riverside)

Mind you, it must be marvellous fun for their talent scouts touring the world, developing scripts, attending read-throughs and tempting playwrights with the offer of a London opening. Next they’re off to Cuba. Spot the mistake? The best drama gets here anyway and the worst should be left where it is.

Theatre Delicatessen has done a deal with the devil. Usually luvvies shun capitalists but Delicatessen has teamed up with an office developer in a scheme that enables the troupe to visit undead buildings and mount plays in their scooped-out innards prior to refurbishment. Wonderful plan. The derelict interior of 295 Regent Street makes a suitably ravaged setting for Fanshen, a David Hare play located in rural China in the 1940s, in which everyone wears clogs and rags and lives on two beanshoots a year.

The harrowing script focuses on the awakening of the peasants’ political consciousness and traces the pathology of the revolution from the first heady and virulent outbursts of freedom, through the bitter struggles for influence and dominion, to the corrupt and paranoid backlash of the counter-revolution.

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