Vassa

by Maxim Gorky adapted by Mike Bartlett

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 8 November 2019

Tinuke Craig directs Siobhán Redmond as the matriarch Vassa with Amber James as her daughter Anna, Arthur Hughes and Danny Kirrane as her sons Pavel and Semyon, Michael Gould as her brother-in-law Prokhor and Cyil Nri as her manager Mikhail. Sophie Wu played Lyudmila, Pavel's wife, Kayla Meikle was Natalya, Semyon's wife, and Alexandra Dowling and Daniella Isaacs played the two servants Lipa and Dunya.

In a versatile set designed by Fly Davis, unusually making use of a curtain in this theatre, and allowing for multiple entrance points reminiscent of a farce, the fate of capitalism is played out in miniature as Vassa attepts to preserve the family fortunes from collapse in the face of her husband's imminent death, her brother-in-law's rapacity, and her sons' incompetence. Indeed the staging encourages a view that we are watching a farce, as people erupt on stage, having been eavesdropping at the doors, or else appearing totally unaware of the crisis into which they are plummeting. Vassa herself holds the stage (she is usually on stage) with imperious determination, and even in her absence most people are fearfully aware of her authority.

Imperium

Adapted by Mike Poulton from the Cicero novels of Robert Harris

seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 4 July 2018

Gregory Doran directs Richard McCabe as Cicero and Joseph Kloska as his secretary Tiro, with a supporting cast of twenty-three, in a two part adaptation of Robert Hrris's three Cicero novels (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) though most of the material from the first novel has not been used. The two stage parts are called Conspirator and Dictator, and each contains three plays: Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in the first, and Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian in the second. From this it can be seen that the first play deals with Cicero's consulship (63 BCE) and the subsequent and controversial suppression of Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate government of Rome (if that is what it was), while the second deals with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and its aftermath up to the death of Cicero in the following year.