Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 5 April 2019

Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton co-direct an exciting production of Richard II performed by a cast of women of colour supported by an entirely female stage crew. Adjoa Andoh herself plays King Richard, with Sarah Niles as Bolingbroke, Dona Croll as John of Gaunt, Shobna Gulati as the Duke of York, Ayesha Dharker as Aumerle, Leila Farzad as the Queen, Indra Ové as both Mowbray and Northumberland, and Nicholle Cherrie, Lourdes Faberes and Sarah Lam playing the other parts.

There is of course an element of statement-making about all this: why should actors of any gender or race be denied the chance to play Shakespeare, especially considering that originally (in Shakespeare's day) all the female parts were taken by men or boys? But, dramatically as an experience on stage, the issue is virtually irrelevant: the production is magnificent at exploring new facets of a familiar - even over-familiar - story, simply by capitalising on the extraordinary energy and freshness of the performances and the exotic setting.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

by Christopher Hampton

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 30 January 2016

This revival of the play, based on the epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, is directed by Josie Rourke and designed by Tom Scutt. It features Janet McTeer as la Marquise de Merteuil and Dominic West as le Comte de Valmont, with Elaine Cassidy as Madame de Tourvel, Edward Holcroft as le Chevalier de Danceny and Una Stubbs as Madame de Rosemonde, Morfydd Clark as Cécile de Volanges and Adjoa Andoh as Madame de Volanges.

In late eighteenth-century but pre-Revolutionary France the Marquise and the Comte,once lovers but now sexual adventurers, engage in various plots of seduction to amuse themselves ; but the Marquise is playing for higher stakes than the Comte, who (as is perhaps the way with over-confident men) has under-estimated the woman whom he had thought of as an equal. The Comte at first unwillingly fulfils the Marquise's proposal that he seduce an innocent young girl (Cécile de Volonges), while at the same time he finds that the virtuous Madame de Tourvel stirs deeper feelings in him than he bargained for. In turn Madame de Tourvel succumbs to passion, but they are both destroyed by the Marquise's resentment.