Slava’s Snowshow is not just a love letter to the theatre but a resume outlining the possible.
Sam O’Sullivan may well be David Williamson’s heir apparent at Ensemble, his play festooned with verbal foliage, a topiary pruned by topical shears that never let the branches sag with mere gags, instead shaping the story with sharp observation and an inquisitive wit.
Given the extraordinary achievements of this incredible tennis player, it felt equally extraordinary to feel her life somehow diluted because writer and director Andrea James never quite goes for it.
The Wasp is a dramatic psychological pretzel fabricated with fright, a genuinely arresting hundred minutes of percolating manipulation motivated by slights past and present and an audacious ambition to bring those slights to right.
Emme Hoy wrote the script of Monsters during lockdown, when the world was extremely uncertain, and nobody knew what theatre would look like on the other side.
It’s the kind of play an actor dreams of. This two-hander by author Rajiv Joseph is dark, gritty, kind, gentle, devastating, and hopeful.