A heady mix of Brat Camp-style give-them-a-hiding-and-take-away-their-luxuries, the incompetence of Alan Sugar’s Apprentice wannabes and the close ups on tears of Pop Idol, this is a clever, repugnant tale for our time.
Elliot Cowan’s Lowell pretending to stand outside in the cold waiting for a taxi is the first time in ages that I’ve seen an actor on stage, indoors, who has actually looked like they might be outdoors in the elements; the way he stands in relation to the imagined space is spot on.
It is not naturalism, but almost the sound of interlocking soliloquies, or perhaps spoken arias, given the heightened emotional states and the musical precision of the language and vocal performances. This is a fascinating and quite unique work from a writer who remains a continual challenge to received notions of what theatre should be.
Yes, these essays are sometimes difficult and sometimes the subject matter may be unfamiliar, so all the more reason to take up the challenge and learn something new from a real authority.
The editors’ strange view of creativity, to be fair, is not entirely their fault. We live in a society obsessed with cultivating the creative mind: on this view, the mental attitude is all that matters, regardless of what end product it actually creates.
Sennett argues that part of our uncertainty over technology comes from our estrangement from material culture. We tend to see material things as obscure ‘because most of us use things like computers and automobiles that we did not make and do not understand’. But to overcome our fear of technology, we must reinvent our relationship with it rather than retreat altogether.
Ravenhill’s refusal to simply trot out uninterrogated truisms of either side, plus the impressive array of recurring devices which bind the plays together, confirm his reputation as an impressive thinker as well as a leading writer.
The tone of the piece is at once playful and horribly serious - the same sort of sarcastic, ironic voice as the one that permeates Martin Crimp’s more post-modern offerings, with a fair amount of Chuck Palaniuk-style viscera thrown in for good measure. The way the piece ranges through the lives of the three or four women it describes sets up a fascinating matrix of possible comparisons and commentaries.
Sarkies’ vision of the world, unless he is being ironic – in which case he might want to flag it up a bit so was can all enjoy the joke – is pretty much that capitalism sucks and we are all powerless.
Kennedy makes you work to fathom what is going on, intentionally leaving you at times as confused as Alfred is himself.
The immigrant story is an established trope in American literature, but Amy Bloom does something subtly different.
This is novel at pains to take a viewpoint that, while not aloof or dispassionate, avoids being either unpalatably saccharine or being so emotionally heavy-handed as to constitute the literary equivalent of being hit in the face with a chapati pan.
The mere fact mother and daughter ‘are’ Jewish leaves them open to persecution, which raises the question of whether there is such a thing as a specific Jewish identity.
So, the son of a very wealthy couple both working in professions typically characterised as right-leaning (corporate law and wealth management) has smacked the child of a self-made man and a bleeding heart liberal in the face. Could it get any more obvious? Well, no; but it can get several layers more opaque. Allegiances form and crumble with surprising alacrity
There is a great deal to commend Young’s work. It makes a strong case for the power of formal knowledge and the role of sociology in understanding the conditions that enable its development. Young persuasively demonstrates that schooling plays a unique role in initiating pupils into the intellectual traditions that enable them to think for themselves.