Orange Tree
The Philanderer, Orange Tree TheatreWednesday, 18 May 2016Gender deconstruction, fraught feminism and the perils of hook-up culture: George Bernard Shaw’s comedy of manners, penned in 1893, shows we haven’t come as far as we might think. It’s a point rammed home by Paul Miller’s choice of modern dress, but... Read more... |
The Brink, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 12 April 2016Generation Y are worriers. There’s certainly plenty to fuel that angst, from mounting debts, employment uncertainty and the ever-worsening housing crisis to international conflict and terrorism – as explored by a slew of recent articles (and the... Read more... |
The Rolling Stone, Orange Tree TheatreThursday, 21 January 2016I’m still pondering the title of Chris Urch’s new play. On the surface it’s clear enough: The Rolling Stone is a weekly newspaper in Uganda that has been notorious for pursuing that country’s anti-gay agenda. In particular, at the beginning of the... Read more... |
French Without Tears, Orange Tree TheatreWednesday, 14 October 2015Over the past quarter century the reputation of toff playwright Terence Rattigan has been restored, mainly by strong stagings of his classic dramas, such as Deep Blue Sea. But his first smash hit, French Without Tears, has been the unicorn of... Read more... |
When We Were Women, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 08 September 2015Can you peg a whole play on a decent twist? When We Were Women’s narrative tease pays off interestingly, but takes a hell of a long time getting there. It leaves little space to explore the ramifications of an intriguing revelation, a frustration... Read more... |
Play Mas, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 14 March 2015Mustapha Matura's 1974 play is a celebration of liberation, both social and political, and a sly warning about the possible pitfalls of sudden freedom. Mas (or Masquerade) is the Trinidadian version of Carnival, an exotic mixture of Christian and... Read more... |
Little Light, Orange Tree TheatreSunday, 08 February 2015The Orange Tree’s renaissance continues with this searing piece from playwright of the moment Alice Birch, who will shortly follow up last year’s subversive Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again with an interrogation of the porn industry for Rufus Norris’s... Read more... |
The Distance, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 11 October 2014Are there any real taboos left? I mean, there have been scores of plays about incest, about abuse and about paedophilia. Have all proverbial stones been turned over? According to Deborah Bruce, a director turned playwright, there is one situation... Read more... |
Orange Tree Theatre Festival, Programme 1, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 14 June 2014Sam Walters, Britain's longest-serving artistic director of a theatre (43 years!), looks to the past as well as the future with his Orange Tree swansong. This varied festival features nine plays and six world premieres across two programmes, all of... Read more... |
Squirrels/The After-Dinner Joke, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 24 May 2014In French, when you want to end a digression and get a conversation back on point, you say "revenons à nos moutons". It's a commonly used idiom, meaning literally "let's get back to our sheep", the sheep representing the actual subject under... Read more... |
The School for Scheming, Orange Tree TheatreMonday, 21 April 2014Usually, to describe a play as "of its time" is a criticism. It is suggestive of drama that hasn't aged well, that doesn't work quite as well for today's audience as it did for the original crowd. First performed in 1847, Dion Boucicault's The... Read more... |
Invincible, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 18 March 2014It's unusual for a play to be political without being preachy, or dull, or both. As obsessed as we are with class distinctions, we aren't as good as we should be at pulling them apart. Invincible is therefore something rare, for it turns social... Read more... |