Tennessee Williams RSS feed

Black Cat hopes to charm the West End

2009-10-19T12:08:10Z

All-black cast of a new West End production of the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof began rehearsals

The play's the thing, as theatres rediscover drama this autumn

2009-09-16T08:32:08Z

Londoners are being invited to make the play the thing this autumn as a cavalcade of stars prepares to tread the boards

Cate Blanchett suffers head injury during fight scene

2009-09-03T07:29:29Z

Cate Blanchett will be back on stage in Sydney tonight after suffering a head injury during a fight scene, forcing the cancellation of the performance mid-show

Rachel Weisz mesmerizes in magical Streetcar Named Desire

2009-07-28T23:00:00Z

This production has both realism and magic, and makes A Streetcar Named Desire seem a resonantly modern tragedy.

Be honest, every older woman wants a gigolo

2009-03-11T10:36:55Z

McAvoy is pulling power in Three Days of Rain

2009-02-11T00:00:00Z

The magnificently acted Three Days of Rain doesn't engage or emerge as coloured more than a paler shade of grey.

A cast adrift in Small Craft Warnings

2008-09-14T23:00:00Z

Bill Bryden directs an engaging, well orchestrated revival of late, under-par Tennessee Williams tragi-comedy Small Craft Warnings.

Steamy sex in Street Scene

2008-07-17T23:00:00Z

There is nothing quite like Street Scene's fascinating hybrid of opera and Broadway musical, says Nicholas de Jongh.

Liberal affair lacks passion

2008-05-13T23:00:00Z

Haughty Greta Scacchi fails to create a storm in The Deep Blue Sea as it sketches a portrait of grey, puritan England, says Nicholas de Jongh.

Spellbinding tale of confused smother love

2008-05-11T23:00:00Z

Amazing performances seal the success for That Face; 21-year-old Polly Stenham's play about a twisted family and incest.

Comedy and pathos in store

2008-05-07T23:00:00Z

While Levi David Addai's play, Oxford Street, remains plot-lite, its undercurrents of comedy and pathos keep the 85-minute evening buoyant.

Frutos at his finest

2008-04-28T23:00:00Z

Javier De Frutos�s direction of Phoenix Dance Theatre has been so successful that you have to admire his judgment.

Best little theatre in London

2008-04-29T10:08:36Z

Mehmet Ergen has built Dalston's Arcola into a buzzing fringe venue that attracts big names. Now, he says, it's time to expand.

Old Vic's mother superior

2007-09-04T23:00:00Z

No more extraordinary, sexually charged or surreal encounter than All About My Mother can ever have been played upon the Old Vic stage.

Symbolic eels just slip away

2007-07-09T23:00:00Z

Nell Leyshon's Glass Eels is a mildly preposterous drama of unhappy family relations in rural Somerset, dressed up in lashings of flamboyant symbolism, says Nicholas de Jongh.

Finding room to Bloom

2007-07-03T09:51:14Z

Hollywood heart-throb Orlando Bloom tells Siobhan Murphy why he has left the blockbusters behind and headed for the West End stage.

The passion that stirs the cool Miss Pike

2007-06-01T13:59:23Z

One-time Bond girl Rosamund Pike could have stuck with movies. But, she says, the stage is like a drug - especially with a play like Gaslight.

At last, a great Southbank show

2007-05-30T11:06:05Z

Nick Curtis, who grew up going to the Southbank, celebrates the complex's shift from bleak concrete jungle to cultural quarter to be proud of.

Zoe magically transformed by sex

2007-03-29T23:00:00Z

Tennessee Williams wrote The Rose Tattoo when he was happy and, creatively speaking, happiness did not suit him. Nicholas de Jongh could see why the play has only been revived twice in 49 years.

Cul-de-sac of desire

2007-03-12T00:00:00Z

A trio of Tennessee Williams's one-act plays, Lovely and Misfit serves a reminder of how the playwright wrote compulsively, fuelled by cocktails of alcohol and drugs.

Maths don't add up without Paltrow

2007-02-20T00:00:00Z

Gwyneth Paltrow's performance in Proof four years ago helped atone for the play's governing contrivances and vacuities. Without her, its limitations are exposed.

I feel loved in London

2007-02-16T13:28:09Z

As The Glass Menagerie opens to West End acclaim despite flopping on Broadway, Jessica Lange, now 57, confessses to first-night nerves and tells how she's still a rebel at heart.

Beautiful blues for a bleak childhood

2007-02-14T00:00:00Z

Rupert Goold's dream-struck production of The Glass Menagerie proves it is one of the great, unhappy family-life plays in the modern American repertoire, says Nicholas de Jongh.

Courting controversy

2007-02-06T12:23:25Z

The Royal Court should provoke, says its new director Dominic Cooke in his first interview, and he plans to do just that.

Williams' gay play to open in London

2007-01-16T13:35:46Z

And Tell Sad Stories Of The Death Of Queens, a play Tennessee Williams refused to allow to be performed in his lifetime, is to open in March.

Commentary: Profits and bathtime songs

2006-11-21T13:42:00Z

The straight play is going out of fashion in the West End because theatre owners like profits and bathtime songs, laments Nicholas de Jongh.

Critic's choice: Top five plays

2006-11-07T10:00:39Z

The stars of Dirty Dancing are kicking up their heels, Faustus offers a smorgasbord of theatrical delights and Faust provides an evening you're unlikely to forget.

Rosamund plays it cool

2006-10-18T23:00:00Z

Tennessee Williams's Summer And Smoke has been rediscovered on the London stage but actress Rosamund Pike is a little too serene for the role of a sexually desolate preacher's daughter.

Drama? It's just madness

2006-09-20T23:00:00Z

There are not that many plays that Nicholas de Jongh would cross London to avoid but Terry Johnson's Piano/Forte is one of them.

Small but perfectly formed

2006-08-06T23:00:00Z

Mark Bolland loves caviar so he was excited at the thought of visiting Volstead, a new lounge-bar near Piccadilly that serves the sturgeon's roe. But, as he discovered, small is beautiful here and it's not a place where people go to eat.