To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Tear the house down
SIMON PARSONS relishes the revival of a highly original play that explores the reinvention of a family that rejects traditional gender roles
Simon Startin as Arnold, Felicity Huffman as Paige and Steffan Cennydd as Isaac in Taylor Mac’s Hir
[Pamela Raith]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Hir
Park Theatre
TAYLOR MAC’s highly original play establishes a surreal, darkly comic tone from the outset. We find the man of the house in a pink nightdress and clown’s make-up sitting docilely beneath a hippy-like banner with an 11-letter acronym for diverse sexual identities in what looks like a trashed kitchen.
But the play does much more than simply question traditional sexual identities.
Returning from Afghanistan suffering with a form of PTSD, ex-marine Isaac (Steffan Cennydd) is faced with a home in chaos. His mother Paige has seized on her husband’s mentally incapacitating stroke as the chance for personal freedom and reinvention. Rejecting traditional, stereotypical female values and revelling in her daughter’s hormone-induced gender realinement, she is on a tumultuous quest to find a fresh, non-materialistic identity while keeping her husband drugged up and in fancy dress.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY applauds the timely revival of Miller’s study of people fatally deformed by the economics of survival
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship
GORDON PARSONS is disappointed by an unsubtle production of this comedy of upper middle class infidelity