Going Dark
Young Vic, SE1
It starts with a scene of domestic contentment. Max (John MacKay) is shaving while his six-year-old son mucks around with space rockets. But we know something’s up: why is all this taking place in the gloaming? A planetarium lecturer, Max is accustomed to explaining the night sky, but his eyesight is failing, and now he exists in a world of gathering darkness. Sound & Fury’s collaboration with Hattie Naylor takes us through the half-submerged realm of Max’s day-to-day. The photosensitive production keeps the audience slightly off kilter, deploying blackouts, fade-outs and hallucinatory washes of sound to convey the experience of going blind. It finds shadings of distress, confusion and wonder in Max’s situation. His love for his inquisitive little boy is the fixed point. There’s a beautiful matter-of-factness to their exchanges, which pull back from mawkishness in the nick of time. MS
Can We Talk About This?
National Theatre, SE1
Lloyd Newson is an instinctively contrarian director, and his new show goes for the liberal jugular. Are supine liberals scared of criticising Islam’s extreme wing — even as it scorns the West’s dearest values? It’s a brave, if deeply flawed, show. It visits 25 years of flashpoints — including the Rushdie fatwa, Danish cartoons, the murder of Theo van Gogh — though through statement more than argument. Verbatim and physical theatre meet, the actors dancing as they speak. In this touchy area they duck and weave, tie themselves in knots, even climb the walls. But although bodies, especially female ones, suffer censorship, the core concern is ideology — free thought, free speech. The intricate movement neither argues against the words, nor finds dramatic images for them. And almost everyone quoted is a public figure or spokesperson. Where are the individual stories that could make a play? DJ
Democracy
Sheffield Crucible
With so many references to the pains of trying to hold a coalition together, Michael Frayn’s absorbing, tense play about the West German chancellor Willy Brandt (1969-74) has acquired a new relevance since it was first staged in 2003. Part of Sheffield’s fascinating Frayn season, Paul Miller’s beautifully lit production makes excellent use of the stage as the politicians, all men in suits, complain and conspire while simultaneously professing their loyalty to Brandt (Patrick Drury), their complex leader, who combines drinking and womanising with a brave policy of reconciliation with his Soviet-bloc neighbours. What they don’t know is that his eager-beaver assistant, filing in the corner, is a Stasi spy (Aidan McArdle) — who, ironically, also hero-worships Brandt. Once again, Frayn reveals his rare ability to probe the intricacies of human behaviour. JE
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Moon on a Rainbow Shawl
National Theatre, SE1
Errol John’s 1953 play, set in his native Trinidad, is heart-wrenchingly reclaimed. Neighbours in a Port of Spain yard scrabble for the Yankee dollar and watch their hopes recede. On this small stage it’s never picturesque — characters live “like hogs” at ramshackle, clammy close quarters. If the plotting skirts stereotype, it’s a privilege to watch this quality cast: Martina Laird’s footsore guardian of the yard’s morality, with a glare that scalds and patience worn to the bone; Jude Akuwudike’s fallen cricketing hero; Jenny Jules as the local Rita Hayworth. Danny Sapani’s thunderous bus driver is peerless, storm clouds scudding across his face, roaring: “Take me out of this blasted place!” Escape for a new life feels like betrayal; staying put is giving up. Under Michael Buffong’s fine direction, dreams slowly deflate and lie rotting in the sun. DJ