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    ‘The Cherry Orchard’ Review: Chekhov in the Fun Zone

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    Benedict Andrews’s production in London offers perfectly pitched comedy where other directors find somber tragedy.When Anton Chekhov wrote “The Cherry Orchard,” his 1904 play about a financially beleaguered aristocratic household in turn-of-the-century Russia, he thought of it as a comedy. Generations of theater directors — starting with Konstantin Stanislavsky in its original Moscow run — had other ideas, preferring to render it as a somber tragedy. In London, a new production sets out to do justice to the playwright’s vision by leaning in to the play’s comedic elements.Directed by Benedict Andrews, an Australian based in Iceland who had London hits with “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” the show runs at the Donmar Warehouse through June 22. It is a funny and, at times, raucous take which, despite some flaws, breathes new life into this old classic.The German actress Nina Hoss gives a controlled performance as Ranevskaya, who returns to her family estate after a grief-stricken exile to find its residents depressed and broke. She is a poignant picture of frayed dignity, her aristocratic self-possession increasingly brittle as the story progresses toward it sad denouement. But the real star of the show is Adeel Akhtar (“Murder Mystery”) as Lopakhin, the rapacious self-made magnate who persuades Ranevskaya to put the estate’s prize jewel, her beloved cherry orchard, up for auction.Hoss with Adeel Akhtar, who plays Lopakhin, the businessman who convinces Ranevskaya to put her orchard up for auction.Johan PerssonAkhtar renders Lopakhin as a cockney wheeler-dealer, by turns chummy and aggressive, whose brazen acquisitiveness is tempered by a raffish charm — he is fond of corny catchphrases like “see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” — and moments of humanity. A peasant’s son, he has transcended his origins but remains acutely conscious of them. (He tells us he is ashamed of his handwriting because it gives him away.) Despite Lopakhin’s almost cartoonish cynicism, we can’t help but like him, even when he buys up the orchard himself, intending to tear it down and turn it into a lucrative tourist resort.Michael Gould (“A View from the Bridge”) is outstanding as Ranevskaya’s brother, Gaev, the epitome of aristocratic dissipation as he pads about the stage in baggy sweatpants, sucking on a lollipop while delivering eccentric disquisitions. There are some eye-catching performances among the minor characters, too. June Watson is delightful as the octogenarian servant Firs, who is forever mumbling away to herself, semi-audibly, in irritable tones. And Eanna Hardwicke makes a brilliantly funny stage debut as the bookkeeper Epikhodov, whose clownishly squeaky shoes undermine the authority of his every utterance (most notably when he declares “I’m, quote-unquote, intellectually insatiable”).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: ‘Next to Normal’ Is Back, With Extra Pathos

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      A London revival of the hit musical brings extra warmth to the story of a woman in psychological free fall.A mind in torment is making for some terrific theater at the moment in London, where the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “Next to Normal” is belatedly having its British debut 14 years after it opened to acclaim on Broadway. The local premiere at the intimate but important Donmar Warehouse runs through Oct. 7, and this engagement looks unlikely to be its last.In between its Broadway run and now, the show has been seen in an immersive production in Barcelona and its composer, Tom Kitt, has written a handful of other Broadway musicals.But as staged afresh in London under the astute eye of the director Michael Longhurst, “Next to Normal,” a portrait of a woman in psychic turmoil, has a renewed sting.Longhurst is soon to depart his post as artistic director of the Donmar (Timothy Sheader takes over the job next year) so is easing his way out on a high. In casting “Next to Normal,” he has plucked a supporting performer, Caissie Levy, from his lauded 2021 Broadway revival of “Caroline, or Change” to inherit from the Tony winner Alice Ripley the demanding lead role of Diana Goodman, a bipolar wife and mother whom we witness in accelerating degrees of distress. The result is transformative: Whereas the show I recall in New York (with a different cast) was commanding but chilly, this version owes its extra pathos to Levy’s innate warmth: You feel for Diana at every step, even as you fear where her wayward emotions may lead her next.Jamie Parker as Dan and Caissie Levy as Diana. Marc BrennerA Broadway alumna of “Hair” and “Frozen,” Levy from the start pulls you into her character’s increasing confusion. We see at the outset the difficulty Diana faces in simply making sandwiches, the bread laid out before her as if as if this routine domestic task were an unusual challenge.From there, the musical darkens to embrace shock therapy, attempted suicide and multiple hallucinations, the specifics of which are best left unrevealed. Some may chafe at the cumulative effect of a through-sung musical that lets neither its characters nor its audience off the hook; we witness Diana’s reluctant surrender to electroconvulsive therapy, followed by memory loss that further amplifies her trauma.Some may flinch at the unyielding nature of the despair that unfolds, but those attuned to its candor may emerge from the show with clarity: It’s no surprise that the final song is entitled “Light.” This musical opts not for fake sentimental uplift, but for the courage that comes from facing down mental illness, acknowledging human frailty and somehow finding a way to carry on.Several references move the world of the show on from a decade ago. Mentions of X, formerly known as Twitter, and climate change suggest the present day, and Chloe Lamford’s sliding, bleakly antiseptic set — representing both home and hospital — exists in colorless contrast to the blood that gets spilled upon it. (The London-based American performer Trevor Dion Nicholas ably doubles as the two doctors struggling to diagnose Diana’s condition.)Trevor Dion Nicholas doubles as two doctors struggling to find a diagnosis for Diana’s condition.Marc BrennerLevy steers the production, her voice softening on the plaintive solo “I Miss the Mountains” before acquiring the necessary steeliness for “You Don’t Know,” Diana’s furious duet with her husband, Dan. In that role, Jamie Parker, a onetime Harry Potter on the London and Broadway stage, communicates the anguish that comes from watching a loved one slip away: The sight of him, late on, curled up in despair in the family kitchen, is among the show’s most rending.As the couple’s musician daughter, Natalie, Eleanor Worthington-Cox brings some serious pipes to the part of a teenager determined not to follow in her mother’s fraught emotional path. Jack Ofrecio is properly sympathetic as her boyfriend, a good-natured stoner who attempts to keep Natalie from her own psychological free fall.And the production boasts a genuine breakout star in the fresh-faced Jack Wolfe, who seizes the role of the antic son, Gabe, and brings a darting sense of danger whenever he appears on the two-tiered stage. (The music director Nick Barstow’s expert band is positioned above the action, obscured now and again by screens that suggest a clouded mind.)In superb voice, Wolfe has an electrifying talent that more than matches Levy’s own, and when he rocks out on the character’s solo number “I’m Alive” — Gabe’s searing anthem of self-assertion — it feels as if there’s no more vital theatrical place to be.Next to NormalThrough Oct. 7 at the Donmar Warehouse, in London; donmarwarehouse.com. More

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      ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ Dominates Olivier Award Nominations

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      Studio Ghibli’s fantastical movie was an unexpected choice for a stage adaptation. Now, it is up for 9 awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.A stage adaptation of “My Neighbour Totoro,” an animated Japanese children’s movie filled with fantastical creatures, emerged on Tuesday as the front-runner for this year’s Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.The show, which ran at the Barbican Theater in London and included numerous giant puppets, secured nine nominations for the awards — more than any other play. Those included nods for best comedy, best director for Phelim McDermott and best actress for Mei Mac as a girl who discovers a magical world near her home.The play’s high number of nominations was perhaps unsurprising given that “My Neighbour Totoro” received rave reviews when it opened last year.Matt Wolf, writing in The New York Times, said the play’s puppets were “the most endearing sight on the London stage” at the time. Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times said the Royal Shakespeare Company production was “a tender, remarkably beautiful family show that extols kindness.”Although “My Neighbour” secured the most nominations, it did not get a nod for best new play. Instead, four more grown-up dramas will compete for that title. Those include “Prima Facie” at the Harold Pinter Theater, a Broadway-bound one-woman show about sexual assault that stars Jodie Comer; “Patriots” at the Almeida Theater, a retelling of President Vladimir V. Putin’s rise in Russia; and Aaron Sorkin’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” adaptation at the Gielgud Theater.Those shows will compete with “For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy,” a play at the Royal Court in London about six young Black men who meet for group therapy.Jodie Comer’s performance in “Prima Facie” struck a chord with West End audiences and she was also nominated for best actress. She is up for that title against Mei Mac of “My Neighbour Totoro,” as well as Patsy Ferran for “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Almeida Theater, Janet McTeer for “Phaedra” at the National Theater, and Nicola Walker for “The Corn Is Green,” also at the National.Before Tuesday’s announcement, many British theater critics had expected Emma Corrin to receive a nomination for “Orlando,” a play based on Virginia Woolf’s gender-fluid novel, at the Garrick Theater.That would have likely caused a media stir as Corrin, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has over the past year repeatedly urged award show organizers to make their acting categories gender neutral. Last year, Corrin told the BBC that it was “difficult for me” to be nonbinary and nominated in female acting categories.Emma De Souza, a spokeswoman for the Society of London Theater, the award’s organizers, said that Corrin was considered in the best actress category, but did not make the cut. “It was an incredibly competitive year,” De Souza added.The best actor award is set to be equally hard fought. Among the nominees are the rising Irish star Paul Mescal for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Rafe Spall for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and David Tennant for “Good.” They will compete against Tom Hollander for his role as an oligarch in “Patriots” and Giles Terera, who starred in “Blues for an Alabama Sky” at the National Theater.In the musical categories, the nominations are led by “Standing at the Sky’s Edge,” also at the National. The show, about the residents of a housing complex in the northern English city of Sheffield, secured eight nominations, including best new musical. It will compete for that title with the “The Band’s Visit” at the Donmar Warehouse and “Sylvia” — a hip-hop musical based on the life of the suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst — at the Old Vic.Those three titles will face stiff competition from “Tammy Faye,” a high-profile production at the Almeida Theater that told the story of the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker using new music by Elton John.The winners of this year’s Olivier Awards will be announced on April 2 in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. More

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      London’s Theater Cuts Matter, on Broadway and Beyond

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      The cushion of state money let the Hampstead and Donmar playhouses develop broad programs with international reach. Now they must find creative ways to play on.LONDON — Standing ovations at London theaters are drearily routine these days, but I experienced one a few weeks ago that felt genuinely impassioned. I’m thinking of the fervent audience response to a new two-character play, “Blackout Songs,” on Hampstead Theater’s intimate second stage. (The show runs at the 100-seat Hampstead Downstairs until Dec. 10.)Chronicling the bruised and bruising relationship between two self-destructive drinkers who meet at an A.A. meeting, Joe White’s spiky tragicomedy is impressive on several fronts. Its performers, Alex Austin and Rebecca Humphries, fearlessly inhabit two restless lovers trying to stave off psychic and physical ruin. The writing plays with time, asking the audience to piece together a fragmented narrative that views these characters — unnamed until the very end — at critical points as they ricochet in and out of each other’s lives.The play asks a lot of the two actors, who meet its demands with force. But there was an additional reason for the palpable excitement in the house at the show’s end that night. The excellence of the show dealt a direct rebuke to the still fresh news of major cuts in government ‌subsidies for arts institutions across London, in which the Hampstead lost its entire grant. Work like “Blackout Songs” is what the Hampstead exists to do, and suddenly the theater felt at risk.The same fate befell the venerable Donmar Warehouse, another small theater with an outsize reach. Might the activity of two playhouses so crucial to the theatrical ecosystem — not just in London — be somehow curtailed? Would they have to become safer, less adventurous?Both houses have long shown their importance, here and overseas. Equipped with three auditoriums between them (the Hampstead has a 370-seat main stage as well), they have generated a substantial body of work, sending shows from London into the world and also offering homes to shows from abroad. The Donmar has just staged the European premiere of “The Band’s Visit”; a second American musical, “Next to Normal,” is scheduled to arrive there next year.To cut these theaters’ subsidies is to advocate, willingly or not, for shrunken ambitions. Philanthropy and commercial activities can pick up the slack, of course, as in the United States. But donor bases don’t arrive overnight. The cushion of state money let the Hampstead and the Donmar develop broad programs with international reach. Unless the theaters tread carefully, the effects of the cut will be felt far beyond London.I can easily see international producers snapping up “Blackout Songs,” not least because its compactness — two characters, one set — is attractive financially. But the director Guy Jones’s production sets the bar high. On a bare stage with just a few chairs, the play’s jagged, nonlinear style is accompanied by whiplash shifts in mood that Humphries and the compellingly volatile Austin capture with ease. The impact couldn’t be stronger, prompting the best sort of guessing game about where the play might end up next.“The Band’s Visit” at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Longhurst.Marc BrennerThe Hampstead has a history of birthing plays that have entered the theatrical canon. Bernard Pomerance’s “The Elephant Man” and Mike Leigh’s “Abigail’s Party” premiered there, as did Harold Pinter’s seminal two-hander, “The Dumb Waiter.” The flow of writing works both ways: The Hampstead has hosted multiple American Pulitzer Prize-winners and finalists, including Marsha Norman, Martyna Majok, Tony Kushner and Stephen Karam.“The Humans,” the Karam play that won the 2016 Tony Award, traveled to the Hampstead in 2018 with its American cast. An earlier Karam play, “Sons of the Prophet,” will receive an overdue British premiere on the Hampstead’s ‌main stage on Dec. 12: further evidence of that two-way traffic.Sure, not every Hampstead offering has been of comparable value. It has faltered of late with plays like “The Breach” and “The Snail House,” two misfires from Naomi Wallace and Richard Eyre; the current main stage play, Rona Munro’s history-minded “Mary,” is beautifully directed by the Hampstead’s artistic director, Roxana Silbert, but doesn’t galvanize the audience as “Blackout Songs” does downstairs. (It also requires more background knowledge of Mary, Queen of Scots and her court than most playgoers will possess.)Still, it’s important to the Hampstead to program a range of work across its two theaters and throughout the year. “What’s the point of a theater not having shows?” Greg Ripley-Duggan, the Hampstead’s executive producer, said pointedly by phone this week. But, he added, the lost subsidy was “an awful lot of money to make up, and to make up from one year to the next. The business model is going to have to change radically.”An absence of state funding will mean greater reliance on corporate and individual philanthropy, and pressure on ticket prices in a city where playgoing — especially away from the West End — is still reasonably affordable. Tickets for “Blackout Songs” can be had for about $12, a sum unheard-of in New York.Across town at the Donmar, a recent 30th-anniversary gala fell within days of the funding cut announcement, and the playhouse’s current and former artistic directors took to the stage at the event to celebrate the 251-seat powerhouse and argue for its survival. The Donmar is also lucky to be hosting a show just now that plays to its strengths: “The Band’s Visit.” On view through Dec. 3, the production is the first musical at this address from its current artistic director, Michael Longhurst, whose career spans both sides of the Atlantic, much like the Donmar itself. “Frost/Nixon” and “Red” are just two Broadway hits first seen there, as was Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,” which is now back onstage in New York through Feb. 5.“The Band’s Visit” has gone in the other direction. Much lauded on Broadway, this adaptation of a 2007 Israeli movie of the same name has an unshowy sweetness ‌that suits the intimacy of the Donmar — all the better for a musical set in an Israeli backwater that is transformed by the unexpected appearance of a‌‌ group of Egyptian ‌musicians lost on‌ their way to somewhere else.Like “Blackout Songs,” this loving reappraisal of “The Band’s Visit” brought the audience to its feet. Let’s hope the Donmar, and the Hampstead, find creative ways to play on.Blackout Songs. Directed by Guy Jones. Hampstead Downstairs through Dec. 10.The Band’s Visit. Directed by Michael Longhurst. Donmar Warehouse through Dec. 3. More

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      Britain’s Major Opera Companies Suffer in Arts Spending Shake-Up

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      English National Opera lost its government subsidy, and the Royal Opera House received a 10-percent cut, with funding diverted to organizations outside London.LONDON — English National Opera has for decades been one of the world’s major opera companies. In 1945, it premiered Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes.” In the 1980s, it became the first British opera company to tour the United States. Last year, it started rolling out a new “Ring” cycle that is expected to play at the Metropolitan Opera starting in 2025.Now, that standing is in question.On Friday, Arts Council England, a body that distributes government arts funding in England, announced a spending shake-up. Nicholas Serota, the council’s chairman, said in a news conference that funding for London-based organizations had been reallocated to those in poorer parts of Britain, a process that involved “some invidious choices.”English National Opera was the biggest loser in the reshuffle. It will no longer receive any regular funding from the Arts Council. For the past four years, it received around £12.4 million a year, or about $14 million. The annual grant made up over a third of the company’s budget.Instead, English National Opera will receive a one-off payment of £17 million to help it “develop a new business model,” Arts Council England said in a news release, which could potentially include relocating the company to Manchester, 178 miles north of its current home at the ornate Coliseum theater in London.English National Opera was not the only major company affected by the funding overhaul. The Arts Council also cut funding to the Royal Opera House in London by 10 percent, to £22.2 million a year.In a news release, the Royal Opera said that, despite the cut and other challenges such as rising inflation, it would “do whatever we can to remain at the heart of the cultural life of the nation.”Two other companies that tour productions throughout England, Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne Productions, saw funding drop by over 30 percent.John Allison, the editor of Opera magazine, said in a telephone interview that the changes were “unquestionably damaging to opera in Britain.” Some innovative small companies had received a funding boost, Allison said, including Pegasus Opera, a company that works to involve people of color in the art form. But, he added, it was still “a very gloomy day.”Britain’s arts funding model is somewhere between the systems of the United States — where most companies receive little government assistance, and raise their own funds via philanthropy, ticket sales and commercial activities — and continental Europe, where culture ministries bankroll major institutions. Arts Council England reviews its funding decisions every few years. This time, some 1,730 organizations applied for subsidies, requesting a total £655 million a year — far more than the organization’s £446 million budget.So, some cuts to English National Opera and the Royal Opera House were expected. Britain’s government has long stated a desire to divert arts funding from London to other regions, in a policy known as “leveling up.” In February, Nadine Dorries, the culture minister at the time, ordered the Arts Council to reduce funding to London organizations by 15 percent. The move would “tackle cultural disparities” in Britain, she told Parliament then, “and ensure that everyone, wherever they live, has the opportunity to enjoy the incredible benefits of culture in their lives.”Serota, the Arts Council chairman, said in a telephone interview that the body had not targeted cuts at opera companies specifically. “We’re still going to be investing more than £30 million in opera a year,” he said, highlighting boosts to regional organizations including the Birmingham Opera Company, English Touring Opera and Opera North.The Arts Council slashed grants for several major London theaters, too. The Donmar Warehouse lost its funding entirely, as did the Hampstead Theater and the Barbican Center. The National Theater saw its funding drop by about 3 percent, to £16.1 million per year from £16.7 million.At a time when the Bank of England says that Britain is facing a multiyear recession, even relatively small cuts will raise huge concern for arts organizations. Sam Mendes, the director of “1917” and “American Beauty,” who was the Donmar Warehouse’s founding artistic director, said in a news release that “cutting the Donmar’s funding is a shortsighted decision that will wreak long lasting damage on the wider industry.” The theater, he added, “is a world renowned and hugely influential theater, and the U.K. cannot afford to put it at risk.”Serota said he was “confident” that the Donmar would be able to find alternative sources of funding. “But I know,” he continued, “that’s an easy thing to say.” More

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      Stars Battle It Out on London Stages

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      In West End productions, Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton play a fighting couple, and Kit Harington from “Game of Thrones” plays the warrior king in “Henry V.”LONDON — There’s no nudity in “Cock,” the 2009 Mike Bartlett play that opened Tuesday in a starry revival at the Ambassadors Theater here. But by the time its 105 minutes, no intermission, have come to an end, you’ve seen its characters stripped emotionally bare.The play has had quite a trajectory, from its London origins in the Royal Court’s 80-seat studio space to a run in New York (where it had the longer, less provocative title “The Cockfight Play”) and now to a commercial West End perch where tickets are going for three figures — prices you might find for a big musical like “Cabaret.”The show’s director, Marianne Elliott, is a significant force in London theater, and the cast is led by Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton, two theater-trained actors more widely known these days onscreen. Bailey came to prominence in the Netflix series “Bridgerton,” while Egerton was a hugely charismatic Elton John in the biopic “Rocketman” and has starred in several of the “Kingsman” films.The play’s author has enjoyed his own ascent. He won acclaim in London and on Broadway for “King Charles III,” which predicts how England’s monarchy might evolve after the queen dies, and has two new plays due in London this spring, one of which, “The 47th,” imagines Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the presidency. (That one opens next month at the Old Vic.)“Cock,” by contrast, features no real-life characters. Only one of them gets an actual name: John (Bailey), a young man in crisis as he pivots between the affections of his male partner of seven years, a broker known simply as M (Egerton), and a female teaching assistant, W. After John and W have sex, he begins contemplating a new life.Jade Anouka acquits herself beautifully as the outsider to a gay relationship on the ropes: a woman who asks for courtesy from M and is met with condescension and worse. He dismisses her job in the classroom as “babysitting,” and some of his euphemisms for the female anatomy will raise an eyebrow or two.Bailey and Jade Anouka in “Cock.”Brinkhoff-MoegenburgThis defining trio widens in a climactic dinner party scene to include M’s father, F (a feisty Phil Daniels), who arrives in time for his son’s home-cooked beef and a “goopy” cheesecake that hasn’t gone quite according to plan. Not that we ever see food or, indeed, props of any kind. In keeping with the stripped-back demands of the writing, the action plays out on a curved bare set, designed by Merle Hensel and illuminated from above by the tubular rods of Paule Constable’s lighting.The playbill credits a gender and sexuality consultant to the production, John Mercer, and includes a glossary of “LGBTQ+ terms,” such as “asexual” and “polyamory.” Some of those weren’t much in use when the play was written, but John would probably have rejected them, anyway: Asked repeatedly to decide who, or what, he is, he simply cannot answer, preferring an identity beyond labels.I must confess to wondering midway through whether John was worth all this fuss. If this production is less moving than the Royal Court original, that may owe something to a different emphasis in the casting. In that show, the wraithlike Ben Whishaw fit perfectly with John’s pencil-drawing wiriness as described in the text. A vigorous, muscular Bailey, by contrast, looks more than able to take care of himself, and he brings to the part the same manic energy that distinguished his bravura performance in Elliott’s 2018 West End production of “Company,” for which he won an Olivier.Egerton made headlines early in the show’s run when he fainted during the first preview, but he recovered quickly enough to joke about it on social media. Inheriting a part originated by Andrew Scott, Egerton brings a sad-eyed defensiveness to his role, reminding us that, in British parlance, to make a mess of things is “to cock things up.”Kit Harington in “Henry V,” directed by Max Webster at the Donmar Warehouse.Helen MurrayAnd things get really messy in the play’s final scene. “Off we go into battle,” remarks F as the episode begins. His readiness would be equally at home on the battlefield of “Henry V,” currently lit up by some star wattage of its own through April 9 at the Donmar Warehouse, where the “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington is in firm command of the challenging title role.Presented in modern dress and with multiple gender flips (as is the Shakespeare norm in London these days), the production charts a neat path between the potential jingoism of a play celebrating England’s military prowess and the dubious aspects of its martial conquests. England’s success comes at sizable cost to France, whose princess, Katherine (Anoushka Lucas), is more or less ordered to be Henry’s bride, without much say in the matter.The play is from the same director, Max Webster, whose show “Life of Pi” received nine Olivier award nominations last week; that adaptation of the Yann Martel novel, still running in London, features inventive puppetry and stagecraft. In “Henry V,” however, the impact comes from the characters, particularly Henry, who abandons his drunken, carousing ways to become a man of war. If Harington finds a compelling ambivalence in the role, that’s because Henry, rather like John in “Cock,” discovers he is a man divided: a sensitive soul whose legacy, he comes to realize, is forever linked to slaughter.Cock. Directed by Marianne Elliott. Ambassadors Theater, through June 4.Henry V. Directed by Max Webster. Donmar Warehouse, through April 9. More

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      In London Theaters, the Show (Sometimes) Goes On

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      A surge in coronavirus infections toppled production after production, but two stage adaptations — of a movie and a blockbuster novel — recovered and endure.LONDON — The show goes on, or these days maybe not. The uptick of coronavirus infections in the last month has upended live performances as severely here as on Broadway. During the holiday season, productions toppled one after another, unable to continue because of outbreaks in their casts or crews. Barely had Rebecca Frecknall’s revelatory revival of “Cabaret,” starring Eddie Redmayne, opened to rave reviews before it lost a spate of performances, a scenario repeated on and off the West End.Shutdowns affected big productions like “Moulin Rouge!,” the epic Tony-winning musical whose much-delayed London opening is now scheduled for Jan. 20. But they also occurred at fringe theaters like the Bush, where a two-hander called “Fair Play” closed within days of its premiere. (The run has since resumed.) Elsewhere, the organizers of the VAULT festival decided “with broken hearts,” they said in a statement, to cancel what would have been the 10th anniversary edition of that important showcase for new work.The Royal Court and the National Theater, two prominent state-funded playhouses, shut their doors altogether during the lucrative holiday period, and, over in the commercial sphere, Andrew Lloyd Webber closed his new musical, “Cinderella,” until February. “I am absolutely devastated,” the composer wrote on Twitter on Dec. 21.So you can imagine my delight this week to find the Donmar Warehouse back in business after being caught up in the closures, presenting the stage premiere of “Force Majeure,” adapted from the 2014 movie. (The play is scheduled to run through Feb. 5.) The audience at the 251-seat theater had to show proof of vaccination or a negative antigen test before entry, and we remained masked throughout — something that, until recently, has been an all too rare sight here. (At “Cinderella” back in August, I clocked scarcely a single mask.)I’m not sure that the playwright Tim Price’s adaptation, alas, is worth all the protocol. Those who know the Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s Cannes Grand Jury prize-winner will recall its portrait of a marriage in free fall, which is sometimes bitterly funny but, more often than not, disturbing and even eerie. Set during five days in the French Alps, “Force Majeure” tells of a husband and wife and their two young children whose ski holiday doesn’t quite go as planned.Caught up in a controlled avalanche that appears to be out of control, Tomas abandons his family in the moment of crisis — or so claims his wife, Ebba, who is shaken by his behavior. Before long, Tomas’s ready smile turns to howls of grief and an awareness that their relationship has been altered for keeps.The theatrical version’s director, Michael Longhurst, has turned the Donmar stage into a miniature ski slope, and the backdrop of Jon Bausor’s clever design shows off the snow-capped mountains essential to the action. What transfers less well is the darkening, ambiguous tone of a film that, in Price’s stage iteration, seems both more literal and more vulgar: Much is made of one character’s priapic tendencies. The couple’s stage children are sullen brats who would have been better off left at home, and the film’s extraordinary ending aboard a wayward bus has been discarded in favor of silly shenanigans in an overcrowded elevator.As the hapless couple, Rory Kinnear and Lyndsey Marshal, both fine actors, slalom their way between affection and recrimination in what plays for the most part as a routine domestic comedy. Tomas’s breakdown — harrowing to watch onscreen — elicited laughs from some spectators the other night.Hiran Abeysekera, left, as Pi and Tom Larkin as Tiger Head in “Life of Pi,” directed by Max Webster, at Wyndham’s Theater.Johan PerssonThe stagecraft is more of an occasion at another play whose performances were interrupted late last year: “Life of Pi,” at Wyndham’s Theater, improbably brings to theatrical life the 2001 novel by Yann Martel that inspired the acclaimed 2012 film for which the director Ang Lee won an Oscar.In that version, 3-D plunges the moviegoer directly into the turbulent waters of a tale told largely at sea, as the teenage Pi, a zookeeper’s son, finds himself cast adrift on a lifeboat with only animals for company — chief among them a Bengal tiger known as Richard Parker. Not to be outdone, the play brings together veterans from the world of video and puppetry who work alongside the director Max Webster and the designer Tim Hatley in conjuring an array of beasts before a rapt audience. The cast list includes six puppeteers for the tiger alone, overseen by the puppetry and movement director Finn Caldwell, who also designed the puppets with Nick Barnes.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4The latest Covid data in the U.S. More

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      ‘Blindness’ Sets Opening, Off Broadway and Indoors

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Blindness’ Sets Opening, Off Broadway and IndoorsAn audio adaptation of the celebrated novel has no live actors and was a pandemic hit in London. In New York it will play to 50 people per show.Audience members listen to the narration through headphones in the Donmar Warehouse production of “Blindness,” which, after delays, will open in New York in April.Credit…Helen MaybanksMarch 9, 2021An immersive audio adaptation of José Saramago’s dystopian novel “Blindness” will be among the first productions to open in New York City since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered theaters a year ago.The producer Daryl Roth said she would present the show, which was created by the Donmar Warehouse in London and was a critical and popular success there, at her namesake Off Broadway theater, the Daryl Roth, for an open-ended run beginning April 2.The 75-minute show does not involve live actors, which considerably reduces the complexity of producing it during the pandemic; the audience listens, via sanitized headphones, to a story narrated by the British actor Juliet Stevenson.The play was written by Simon Stephens, a Tony Award winner for his stage adaptation of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” and directed by Walter Meierjohann. (Stephens is currently up for a Tony as the writer of the first of the monologues that comprise “Sea Wall/A Life.”)Roth said she would allow just 50 people to attend each performance, in a Union Square venue that has held up to 400. Patrons will be required to wear masks and to have their temperatures taken upon arrival.The production is among the first announced since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said last week that he would allow indoor arts and entertainment to resume April 2 at 33 percent capacity, with a limit of 100 people. If the “Blindness” productions sell out, the theater will be at just 12.5 percent capacity; Roth said tickets will be sold in blocks of two, and each pair of seats will be six feet from the others.Roth had hoped to bring “Blindness” to her theater last fall, but the worsening pandemic prevented that; productions scheduled for Washington and Toronto were shelved for the same reason. Now the Donmar is trying once again to present the show around the world; a production in Mexico City, narrated by Marina de Tavira (“Roma”), is scheduled to begin performances on Friday at Teatro de los Insurgentes.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More