ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Blueprint Medea, Finborough Theatre London
Emotional charge defused in Kurdish connection with Greek tragedy
ENGAGING: Ruth D’Silva (right)
[Isabella Ferro]
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
BLUEPRINT MEDEA combines two stories of immense consequence, the first being the classic Greek myth of Medea, immortalised through Euripides’s dramatic masterpiece.
The second is anything but a myth — the real and ceaseless battle by the Kurds to be recognised as an independent nation and to command their own territory.
Playwright Julia Pascal, who also directs, creates a contemporary Medea in the form of a Kurdish woman who is both exploited and oppressed while also fighting for her people and bravely asserting her noble origins.
Similar stories
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
GEORGE FOGARTY is captivated by a brilliant one-man show depicting life in HMP Strangeways
MAYER WAKEFIELD is gripped by a production dives rapidly from champagne-quaffing slick to fraying motormouth
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club