Tag Archives: stalin

Describe the Night, Hampstead Theatre

Posted on May 10, 2018 by mkmswain

American playwright Rajiv Joseph’s latest certainly doesn’t lack for ambition, spanning 90 years, three countries, and mixing history and fiction in its form to make a point about, well, mixing history and fiction. Storytelling through to the pertinent “fake news” … Continue reading →

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A Bright Room Called Day, Southwark Playhouse

Posted on July 29, 2014 by mkmswain

The pivotal early 1930s period in which Herr Hitler overcame strong if fractured left-wing opposition should make for meaty drama, but the sluggish polemic currently occupying Southwark Playhouse will leave carnivorous viewers unsatiated. American playwright Tony Kusher is rightly celebrated … Continue reading →

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Playing politics

Posted on July 26, 2014 by mkmswain

It seems almost unnecessary to criticise Tony Kushner’s insufferable polemic when he does so regularly within the text of A Bright Room Called Day. Characters rebuke one another for their “bad romantic posturing”, “elegant despair” and “carefully constructed but immobile” … Continue reading →

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Theatre company defends culture in dark times

Posted on June 27, 2014 by mkmswain

Reviewers like to believe we have power of influence, but those in Stalinist Russia had power of life and death: a bad write-up spelled doom for the subject. Yet their opinions could not contradict those of the ‘great leader’, and … Continue reading →

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