Susannah Clapp

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Susannah Clapp

Let’s hear it for costume designers. The temptation for a reviewer has always been to regard their work as primarily decorative, not informative; seldom mentioned unless the stage is crammed with silken flounces. An old journalist friend told me that in the 50s, Queen magazine reviews had a formula: the cast was “beautifully gowned”. Imagine getting away with a description of an actor which said only that she spoke very nicely. Yet costumes can tell the story of a play as surely as the dialogue.

1 month ago | msn.com | Susannah Clapp

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1 month ago | theguardian.com | Susannah Clapp

That crucial instruction to writers that they should “show not tell”, is even more evidently useful on the stage than on the page. It might be reworded as “embody not explain”. After all, so much can be seen not only as it is but also in the process of becoming different. This makes Ann Yee’s production of Otherland an extraordinary 3D testimony, a valuable gathering of information and a finally unsatisfactory drama.

2 months ago | msn.com | Susannah Clapp

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Susannah Clapp

In an extraordinary week, three of Britain’s most authoritative male directors make Shakespeare quake and reverberate. Rupert Goold commands the Stratford stage with a maritime Hamlet. A broiling sea. A tilting deck down which bodies slide on a fast chute to hell. Swirling darkness and glaring, blue-tinged light. A mesmeric prince in Luke Thallon. Goold has set the action in 1912, compressed the timescale and made Elsinore not a castle but a boat.