Category Archives: Theatre

THEATRE REVIEW: Thomas Middleton’s ‘Women Beware Women’

Posted on May 9, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Pretty much everyone dies at the end of Thomas Middleton’s steamy la dolce vita roundelay “Women Beware Women,” and in the National’s new production of the Jacobean classic, it happens in a magnificently designed tableau … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Thing’

Posted on May 9, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing,” an incisive and funny but warm examination of love, possessiveness and infidelity, cleaned up at the Tony Awards on its two Broadway outings in 1984 and 2000, and the Old … Continue reading →

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West End theatre thrives on excellence and originality

Posted on April 24, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – If all the world’s a stage, then it never has been more true than in the British capital right now. The nation’s economy is in dire straits, but that hasn’t stopped theatergoers from flocking to … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Dion Boucicault’s ‘London Assurance’

Posted on April 24, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – First produced on the West End stage in 1841, Dublin-born playwright Dion Boucicault’s hilarious farce “London Assurance” is given its full measure in an uproarious production at the National Theatre that makes most modern comedies … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Mark Haddon’s ‘Polar Bears’

Posted on April 9, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – British writer Mark Haddon, whose 2003 novel “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” told of a boy with Asperger syndrome, turns his attention to a young woman with bipolar disorder for his … Continue reading →

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OLIVIER AWARDS: Rachel Weisz, Mark Rylance big winners

Posted on March 21, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Rachel Weisz was named best actress in a play as Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (for which Ruth Wilson, pictured left with Weisz, was named best supporting actress) and Mark Rylance (pictured below) … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Love Never Dies’

Posted on March 15, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Unlike lightning, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom” does strike twice. More than 23 years after “Phantom of the Opera” became a worldwide sensation, the British composer has delivered a sequel in “Love Never Dies” that is … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Jonathan Pryce in ‘The Caretaker’

Posted on March 11, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Harold Pinter’s masterpiece “The Caretaker” mirrors life in that it’s not entirely clear what’s going on but the joy, pain and despair are real. Not that there’s much joy in the late Nobel Prize-winning playwright’s … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: Keira Knightley in ‘The Misanthrope’

Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Keira Knightley has chosen well for her West End stage debut as a spoiled young movie star who is the center of attention in Martin Crimp’s rhymed update of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope.” She gets to … Continue reading →

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THEATRE REVIEW: John Logan’s ‘Red’ at the Donmar

Posted on December 31, 2009 by admin

By Ray Bennett LONDON – Passion can be difficult to explain and harder to re-create, especially when the passion is for abstract art. But passionate acting and design just about make a success of John Logan’s new play, “Red,” that … Continue reading →

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