P.77.Zellweger
Triumphs!
After triumphing as a musical heroine in the Oscar winner ``Chicago,''
Renee Zellweger ends her new comedy, ``Down With Love,'' with a song.
``When we did that song I wasn't even supposed to be recording,''
Zellweger said of the duet with her co-star, Ewan McGregor.
P.78.
Othello: Once you've swallowed the unlikely
premise of a black 1940s general, the production works well. Hopkins's
design for Cyprus, an enfolding set of De Chirico-like colonnades, is
outstanding. Kate Fleetwood's Desdemona combines spirit with fidelity as
shown by her abrupt dismissal of Teresa Banham's worldly Emilia.
P.78.
The Crucible: The relevance of political
plays invariably wavers over time. There have been recent occasions when
Arthur Miller's great broadside against McCarthyism has been made to look
like little more than a tasteful exhibition of Shaker furniture. But Terry
Hands's brilliant post-September 11 production proves that the work has
snapped back into focus.
P.78-79.
Elmina's Kitchen: Guns, drugs, crime,
racism, the effects of single parenthood, the ease with which young black
men reject education, the troubled relationship between black Britons and
"back home", the frustrated desire to achieve...
P.79.
US And Them: We speak the same language,
stand united against terror, and are happy to pay a small coterie of
businessmen millions to run our companies. The UK and US are, it would
seem, the very best of friends. In such a climate, Tamsin Oglesby's
play...
P.80.
Romeo and Juliet: English Touring Theatre
and its director Stephen Unwin have a real knack of spotting talent on the
way up. It was with this company that almost 10 years ago a young Alan
Cumming played Hamlet and Alexandra Gilbreath was a fearsomely young Hedda
Gabler; in the last few years some of the best of our younger generation
of classical actors-Emma Cunniffe, Daniel Evans and Mark Bazeley-have
first made their mark with ETT.
P.80.
The Taming of the of the Shrew:
It
is often suggested that, in their own time, Shakespeare's plays provided
the mass entertainment that soap operas offer today. So it should be a
short leap from Albert Square to Padua for Ross Kemp, best known as Grant
Mitchell in EastEnders and now making his first stab at Shakespeare.
Kemp's Petruchio is scuppered by an indifferent production - the first
I've seen for some time that plays the chauvinistic plot straight ...