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Five Gold Rings at the Almeida – Review

On January 4, 2004May 8, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Joanna Laurens’ “Five Gold Rings” has loftier things in mind than the mere settling of domestic scores

by Matt Wolf | January 4, 2004 | Variety

Not every dysfunctional family drama contains lines like, “It is art to fly speech in the air,” but Joanna Laurens’ Almeida Theater entry “Five Gold Rings” has loftier things in mind than the mere settling of domestic scores. In her sophomore play following her much-praised debut effort “The Three Birds” (which I missed), Laurens wants to reinvent the discourse in such plays, trading in a time-worn naturalism for a heightened language that less charitably inclined playgoers likely will find wearing.

That the evening possesses the considerable fascination it does honors both director Michael Attenborough, in his second consecutive play at this address as Almeida a.d. (following Neil LaBute’s “The Mercy Seat”), and a blue-chip cast of British theater veterans (David Calder) and ascending younger talents (Damian Lewis, Helen McCrory), all of whom are in top form. Sure, “Five Gold Rings” may sound at times as if it has been translated from Latin, but it’s unlikely to encounter more gifted interpreters.

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Damian Lewis Five Gold Rings Print Media Reviews

Five Gold Rings at the Almeida – Review

On December 19, 2003May 8, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Five Gold Rings

by Michael Billington | December 19, 2003 | The Guardian

I feel sorry for Joanna Laurens. Having been praised for the poetic inventiveness of her first play, The Three Birds, I suspect she will take a lot of flak for writing a non-naturalistic family drama. Yet, since we sanction all kinds of wild physical theatre, it seems only right that we should find room for linguistic experiment.

Laurens’s play sounds like a conventionally unhappy family reunion. Henry, a penniless patriarch living in a mysterious desert, is attended at Christmas by his two sons and their wives. But both marriages are in trouble; and when the supposedly impotent Daniel is attracted to his childless sister-in-law, Miranda, the skeletons come tumbling out of the family cupboard. Daniel’s plan to flee with Miranda is unwittingly financed by his brother, Simon, which leads to revelations of revenge, rape and incest.

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Media Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

On October 28, 2002May 14, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Harrowing hilarity

By Paul Taylor | October 28, 2002 | The Independent

He looks as though his copious blubber has been constrained from birth in a wing collar and buttoned-up pinstripe suit and that he must have emerged from the womb with that self-important beard and punctilious moustache. His gait is an effeminately officious cross between a march and a scamper; his tone is a prissily sibilant sneer; and he is forever consulting his watch with righteous impatience. At night, his locks are lovingly protected by a lady’s hairnet.

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Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night at Donmar Warehouse – Review

On October 24, 2002April 30, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Mendes bows out brilliantly

By Charles Spencer | October 24, 2002 | The Telegraph

As Shakespeare wrote elsewhere, parting is such sweet sorrow, and I am not ashamed to admit I had a lump in my throat as the cast took their calls at the end of Sam Mendes’s farewell production at the Donmar.

It was partly because of the moving depth of his staging of this most bittersweet of Shakespearean comedies, but it was also the memory of Mendes’s tremendous achievement here over the past decade.

It is 10 years to the day since he reopened the Donmar with the British premiere of Sondheim’s Assassins, since when he has scarcely put a foot wrong. The theatre became fashionable under his directorship, but the buzzy atmosphere was always founded on excellence. From Friel’s Translations to Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room, from Electra to Privates on Parade, the Donmar has an unparalleled track record in great shows brilliantly staged.

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Print Media Reviews Uncle Vanya

Uncle Vanya at Donmar Warehouse – Review

On September 19, 2002May 1, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

An all-star Cast Perform at the Donmar

by Steve Schifferes | September 19, 2002 | BBC News Online

Helen McCrory, Mark Strong, Emily Watson and Simon Russell Beale

It was luvvies night at the Donmar in London.

The small foyer was crowded with stars as Hollywood film director Sam Mendes launched his last series of plays at the small theatre where he has made his name.

And he did not disappoint them, producing a spectacular version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, played (as it should be) as a black comedy and paired in repertoire with Twelfth Night.

Simon Russell Beale played Vanya as a bumbling fool, just as he played Hamlet a few years back in a famous production at the National.

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