Juniper Blood

by Mike Bartlett

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 11 September 2025

James Macdonald directs Hattie Morahan as Ruth, Sam Troughton as her partner Lip, Nadia Parkes as her "ex-step-daughter" Millie, Terique Jarrett as her partner Femi and Jonathan Slinger as the neighbouring farmer Tony in Mike Bartlett's new play Juniper Blood.

Ruth and Lip are trying to live a sustainable life on Lip's family farm, which Ruth has clearly saved from being sold or broken up - Lip, something of an unworldly idealist, was clearly unable to manage on his own. Millie and Femi, visiting from the city, provide skewering generational and urban/rural barbs which indicate that Ruth is not necessarily a saintly figure, while Tony in turn satirises the eco-pastoralist ideals Ruth and Lip embody, while dealing with his own profoundly distressing recent widowhood.

The play, designed by ULTZ, is set out of doors - the program contains a long essay on the significance of farm settings in plays. There is a grassy field (real grass: how is it kept flourishing?) and sharp daylight turning to dusk at the end of the first act. The tensions and discussions are, it is claimed, inflected rather differently when set outside, rather than (for. example) in a farmhouse kitchen such as would more normally suit a theatre.

There is plenty of scope for tension as the characters reveal their priorities and prejudices. Is sustainable farming economically possible? Is idealism viable at any cost? Can simmering cross-purposes be resolved or will the antagonisms just get worse? These are big issues at both the personal and the societal level, and the play attempts to embrace them all.

While the setting is arresting and the actors excellent, the play itself constantly runs the risk of being too wordy and preachy, raising important issues at the expense of dramatic credibility and narrative drive. The painful dynamic between Ruth and Millie is hilarious and toe-curling at once, but after the first act it recedes into the background, receiving only a slight flicker of interest towards the end. Likewise Tony's interaction with Ruth, prominent in the second act, once having served its turn, receives no further attention. Meanwhile in the third act there is an astonishing disquisition by Femi on the nexus and ultimate triumph of capitalism which is more of a lecture than anything else: only exceptional skill can bring this sort of thing off without intensely irritating an audience (Terique Jarrett succeeds in this).

Sociasl satire, family drama, echoes of Chekhov - even trees being bulldozed, let alone the personal dynamics - and state-of-the-world polemics make for a heady but not entirely successful blend: fascinating to watch in such a well-conceived and acted production, and yet not completely convincing.

Orpheus Descending

by Tennessee Williams

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 25 May 2019

Tamara Harvey directs Hattie Morahan as Lady Torrance, the owner of a convenience store in a small Southern town and Seth Numrich as Val Xavier, an attractive drifter who turns up in town and gets a job as the store clerk. Naturally, despite initial wariness on both sides, the two become lovers, a development fraught with danger in the claustrophobic atmosphere surrounding them.

One can expect sensational but initially unrevealed secrets to dominate a Tennessee Williams play, and this one does not disappoint. Town gossips in the form of two inquisitive housewives inform us that Lady is the daughter of an Italian migrant who set up a drinking 'emporium' by the lake during Prohibition years; when he served drink to negroes the local vigilantes burnt the place down and he died trying to save it. Unbeknownst to Lady, Jabe Torrance, the man she married, led the vigilantes. He is now suffering from cancer, returning from a Memphis hospital soon after Val has turned up in the town.

Anatomy of a Suicide

by Alice Birch

seen at the Royal Court Theatre on 29 June 2017

Katie Mitchell directs Hattie Morahan (Carol), Kate O'Flynn (Anna) and Adelle Leonce (Bonnie) with support from seven other actors in multiple roles in this intense study of three generations of women, two of whom commit suicide.

Carol's story starts in 1972 when she is met by her husband just after a failed suicide bid, while Anna's story begins in 1998 when, almost crippled by drug use, she is confronted by a young intern whose hospitality and kindness she has abused. Bonnie, in 2033, is binding up the wounds (self-inflicted?) of Jo, a fisherwoman who is obviously attracted to her.

The Changeling

by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 4 February 2015

The wonderful indoor playhouse associated with Shakespeare's Globe on Bankside continues its series of Jacobean plays with the tragedy of Beatrice-Joanna as she finds that her attempts to secure her passion for Anselmero trap her in a spiral of moral degradation.

As usual the intimate candle-lit space is used to stunning effect. In fact the play opens in darkness with the major characters appearing and carrying a candle each with a reflector that shines the light only onto a part of their faces, so that eyes, mouths and noses seem to be floating past each other, the gazes snared by the sudden proximity of another's visage. This is a great introduction to a play in which the sight of another person can inflame passions of attraction and revulsion, but also in which many people are fundamentally unknowable or not what they seem.