Alan Brody’s two-act drama about the 11 preeminent German nuclear scientists, including three Nobel laureates, who are detained in an English country manor following their country’s surrender (but just before the American atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima) is no act of avant-garde theatre. Operation Epsilon is a decidedly conventional play - enacted entirely by and about men (save a fleeting but crucial offstage appearance from exiled Jewish physicist Lise Meitner). The story is told … [Read more...]
About Mary Beer
Mlima’s Tale by Lynn Nottage at Kiln Theatre
I was lucky enough to see the New York premiere of Lynne Nottage’s tight mini-epic at The Public some five years ago. Maybe it was the jet lag, but in that experience, it took me a while to figure out that Mlima, the narrator who opens the play, is in fact an elephant - and not just any elephant but the last of the ‘great tuskers’ who are supposed to be protected but whose ivory remains in high demand in certain quarters - the economics of which are a dramatically complex force. In Miranda … [Read more...]
It’s Headed Straight Towards Us at Park Theatre
Backstage farce and character comedies about angsty actors reckoning with the twilights of their careers are subgenres in their own rights and many a fine writer has built satisfying stories in this vein. Sadly, legendry comedians Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer have managed with It’s Headed Straight Towards Us only to construct a painful evening of tedium and cliché that is so formulaic and dated it feels like a cable TV pilot made just for its name-value and destined never to go to … [Read more...]
The Old Man and The Pool at Wyndham’s Theatre
Mike Birbiglia’s one-man show is pretty close to (the highest quality) stand-up but with the shaggy-dog surrealism of Spalding Gray or David Sedaris. Birbiglia manages to be fresh, impeccably-timed and hilarious for a tight 90-minutes with pretty much one monologue told in his own voice. Whilst we hear tales of various other characters (Birbiglia’s cardiologist, mother, wife and lawyer amongst many) we only hear one other voice by way of impression: Birbiglia’s daughter to whom he gives a … [Read more...]
Esther Manito: Hell Hath No Fury at Soho Theatre
Esther Manito is funny. Launching a stand-up tour that will run until mid-October, she kicked off Hell Hath No Fury at the Soho Theatre and scored some major belly laughs from the crowd (who seemed a tad more ITV1 than the Soho usuals but it looked like everyone was won over). Her new set is themed around the double standards to which women are held and how being shackled by unrealistic expectations is crazy-making. She is of course right and her observations are not especially radical. … [Read more...]