To Float on the Wayward Wind

31 October 2013 Duchess Theatre 4/5 Under Jonathan Church’s direction, Henry Goodman embodies Arturo Ui, crafting a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s allusion to the rise of Hitler with uncannily focused energy. Even if it strays from Brecht’s original intentions and only truly blossoms in the play’s final moments, the production’s genius is its subtlety as it proceeds from unsettling comedy to dark poignancy. Design by Simon Higlett and lighting by Tim Mitchell engage partially with Brecht’s philosophies, using a runway, tableaux on stage, and sparse set to remind the audience of being in a theatre performance. Sometimes this technique lacks a clear purpose but eventually draws the audience powerfully into the performance by designating swaths of seats as either Chicago or Cicero. Unfortunately, the absence of the signboards Brecht envisioned, which list the precise historical connections between the play and Nazi Germany, undermines the performance’s relatabilit...

1/5 Glossy posters advertise From Here to Eternity as the next shining star of the West End musical scene. The experience in the Shaftesbury, though, feels more like the death throes of a supernova. The musical, derived more from the 1951 novel by James Jones than the 1953 film adaptation, fails to capture the magic that won the film eight Academy Awards. Missing the opportunity for rich period-accurate music, Composer Stuart Brayson opts instead to rehash trite conventions of musical theatre. Though the underscoring is pleasant, transitions from dialogue to song are dizzyingly abrupt. Ballads blur together while upbeat numbers blare gratingly. Rice relies more on vulgarity and colloquialism than on intelligent writing, of which he is capable. The bellowing male chorus reprises a cornerstone piece, “Thirty Year Man,” so frequently it seems as though Rice and Brayson wrote only half a musical and then recycled material. The performances of the leads further und...

Terry Johnson’s Hysteria : Rollicking, Poignant, Yet Schizophrenic From the  Times 3.5/5 At the Hampstead, Terry Johnson’s tightly scripted Hysteria , essentially a farce playing on the thin, blurry lines of early 20 th -century psychology, surrealism, and sexuality offers a potpourri of theatrical moments. At the outset, Paul Pyant’s lighting warmly suffuses Sigmund Freud’s lush, jewel-toned 1938 Hampstead study, designed by Lez Brotherston. In tandem with the sound for the production, which combines Gareth Owen’s effects and composer Colin Towns’ original music, the detailed richness of the setting impresses immediately. As the psychological action progresses, transitions further reveal the dramatic genius of this team. Terry Johnson’s writing incorporates historical detail and attention to the real-life personalities and psyches of both Sigmund Freud and Salvador Dalí. Peppered with hysterical physical comedy and clever jokes revolving around Freud’s ...