The Red Barn

by David Hare

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 20 December 2016

This play is based on a novel called La Main by Georges Simenon. Set in the eastern US, it concerns Donald Dodd (Mark Strong) and his wife Ingrid (Hope Davis), and their encounter with his friend Ray Sanders (Nigel Whitmey) and his wife Mona (Elizabeth Debicki). It is directed by Robert Icke and designed by Bunny Christie, with lighting by Paule Constable.

The play opens with a snowstorm in which the four characters are attempting to reach the Dodds' home after a party, their car having broken down. By the time three of them are safely inside, Ray has been lost in the storm; later his body is found even though Donald went out again to look for him. It transpires that he may not have spent long looking, though he was gone for hours, as Ingrid discovers many cigarette butts in the barn, which Donald burns - he had sat there for some hours.

The Crucible

by Arthur Miller

seen at the Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, on 25 May 2016

Directed by Ivo van Hove, with an original score by Philip Glass, the production features Ben Whishaw as John Proctor, Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor, Saoirse Ronan as Abigail Williams, Bill Camp as Reverend John Hale and Ciarán Hinds as Deputy Governor Danforth.

The play, a presentation of the 17th century Salem witch trials widely seen as a criticism of the McCarthy-era prosecutions of communists, is here set in a fairly modern schoolroom with neon lights, which serves for all the settings specified by Miller's text (set and lights by Jan Versweyweld). The actors are dressed in old-fashioned but recognisably contemporary clothes, which interestingly serves to underscore the early modern formality of their speech patterns.

Death of a Salesman

by Arthur Miller

seen at the Duke of Yorks Theatre on 4 July 2015

The play, directed by Gregory Doran, and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, stars Anthony Sher as Willy Loman, Harriet Walter as Linda, Alex Hassell as Biff, Sam Marks as Happy and Guy Paul as Ben. It is an RSC transfer from Stratford.

The set mainly shows the Loman household, with bedroom and dining room adjoining (the kitchen and bathroom notionally behind), and the boys' bedroom in an attic space above. All around, the apartment blocks are represented as flat walls encroaching on the garden (as Willy several times complains); but at moments of stress they become mere frames of netting when lit from behind. Other scenes such as Willy's hotel room when travelling, the office and a restaurant, are played in front of the house space. This is an extremely effective way of visualising the claustrophobic nature of Willy's world.

A View from the Bridge

by Arthur Miller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 27 March 2015

The play, transferred from the Young Vic, is directed by Ivo van Hove with Mark Strong as Eddie Carbone, Nicola Walker as his wife Beatrice, Phoebe Fox as his niece Catherine, Luke Norris as her fiance Rodolpho, Emun Elliott as Rodolpho's brother Marco, and Michael Gould as the lawyer Alfieri.

Miller's tense drama from 1955, revised in 1956, is here stripped of almost all realistic reference to reveal its strong affiliation with Greek tragedy. The set is a bare space made almost like a shallow pit through being surrounded on all four sides by a low-level boundary which can be used as benches or to signify the enclosing walls of a room. At the back is a wall with a single entrance cut in its centre leading to a black space behind.