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☆ ‘Hills of California’ Review: A Stage Mother’s Unhappy Brood
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In Jez Butterworth’s new play, we — the audience and protagonists alike — are kept waiting and wondering. It’s the summer of 1976 and Britain is in the midst of a heat wave. They must decide whether to put her out of her misery with a high dose of morphine, or let her continue to suffer. “The Hills of California,” written by Butterworth (“The Ferryman,” “Jerusalem”) and directed by Sam Mendes (“The Lehmann Trilogy”), runs at the Harold Pinter Theater in London, through June 15. Rob Howell’s impressive set makes the most of the playhouse’s nearly 40-foot grid height, with three flights of stairs leading up to the unseen guest rooms.

Persons: Jez Butterworth’s, —, Jill, Ruby, Veronica, Joan, hasn’t, Will, Butterworth, Sam Mendes, “, Harold Pinter, Rob Howell’s Organizations: Blackpool, Harold Pinter Theater Locations: Britain, England, United States, California, ”, Jerusalem, London

☆ ‘The Effect’ Review: It’s More Than Chemical
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Are you in love, or are you merely experiencing a giddy dopamine rush? Is there a true, innermost “you” that is distinguishable from your neurochemistry? “The Effect” revolves around two young people, Tristan and Connie, who take part in a trial for a dopamine-based psychiatric drug with powerful antidepressant properties. Throughout the study, the participants are monitored by two psychiatric doctors, Lorna and Toby, who debate their findings: Is the drug pulling their subjects together, or are their feelings organic? And if one of the trial participants was actually receiving a placebo the whole time, what then?

Persons: Lucy Prebble’s, Jamie Lloyd, Tristan, Connie, Lorna, Toby, Prebble Organizations: National Theater Locations: London, East London, Canada

☆ At Edinburgh Fringe, Small Shows With Big Ambitions
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In a smart revival of Cyriel Buysse’s Flemish classic, “The Van Paemel Family” by the Antwerp troupe SKaGeN, the actor Valentijn Dhaenens sidesteps this difficulty by playing all the play’s roles. Mr. van Paemel is slavishly loyal to the landowner for whom they all work, and believes organized labor is a scourge. This eerie visual texture, neatly complemented by the doleful tones of an accordion, made for a memorably unique aesthetic. The standout Fringe show was Lara Foot’s stylish adaptation of “The Life and Times of Michael K.,” J.M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning 1983 novel about the struggles of a poor man during a fictional civil war in South Africa.

Persons: Van, Valentijn Dhaenens, van Paemel, Lara Foot’s, Michael K, ”, Coetzee’s Booker Organizations: SKaGeN, Handspring, Company Locations: Antwerp, South Africa

☆ Wrestling With Identity at the Edinburgh Festival
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Questions of nationhood, identity and belonging loom large in three politically themed productions at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. The tagline for this year’s edition is “community over chaos,” and there was plenty of both in “Thrown,” a National Theater of Scotland production running at the Traverse Theater through Aug. 27. When Imogen encourages Jo to take a greater interest in racial politics, this puts a strain on Jo and Chantelle’s friendship. Chantelle resents Imogen for boiling everything down to race and vents her frustration at being seen as privileged, simply because she is white. Helen provides moral support to Pam when she reveals her struggles with her gender identity and delivers the play’s defining monologue: a positive message of unity through celebrating difference.

Persons: “, ”, Nat McCleary, Johnny McKnight, it’s, haggis, kilts, Jo, Adiza, Chloe, Ann Taylor, Imogen, Efé, Chantelle, Lesley Hart, Pam, Maureen Carr, Helen, Carr Organizations: Theater of Scotland, Traverse Locations: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Scottish, Scotland

☆ Can ‘Miss Saigon’ Be Saved? Two British Shows Disagree.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Miss Saigon” is back and so, inevitably, is the surrounding discourse. Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical melodrama about an ill-fated romance between a Vietnamese sex worker and an American G.I. So not everyone was pleased when the Crucible Theater in Sheffield, England, announced it would stage a new production of “Miss Saigon” this summer. Chris (a compellingly lugubrious Christian Maynard) meets Kim (Jessica Lee) in a brothel and they fall in love, but their affair ends abruptly when the Americans withdraw from Saigon. Three years later, Chris, now married to an American woman, learns that he has a young son by Kim.

Persons: Saigon ”, Claude, Michel Schönberg’s, Jonathan Pryce, yellowface, Robert Hastie, Anthony Lau, Cameron Mackintosh, Puccini’s, Christian Maynard, Kim, Jessica Lee, Chris, Kim . Kim Locations: Saigon, American, Vietnam, Sheffield, England, British East, Asian, United States

☆ ‘Dear England’ Review: When Soccer Success Becomes a Moral Victory
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A personal redemption narrative forms a compelling subplot the main story, and it’s a cruel irony that Southgate’s England side also lost the final of Euro 2020 in a penalty shootout on home soil. That Southgate has yet to bag a trophy — the England men’s team still hasn’t won a major tournament since 1966 — remains a powerful trump card for his doubters. Yet “Dear England” is not so much about sports as it is about culture. The technical and tactical foundations of the England team’s revival are conspicuously underplayed in this telling: The team’s on-field improvement is straightforwardly tethered to a shift in moral values, and we are given to understand that correlation equals causation. Dear EnglandThrough Aug. 11 at the National Theater, in London; nationaltheatre.org.uk

Persons: — Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Southgate’s, Southgate, hasn’t, “, nationaltheatre.org.uk Organizations: Conservative, Germany, England men’s, National Theater Locations: London, England

☆ Review: Problematic Attachments in ‘Aspects of Love’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Houman Barekat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For those who find regular love triangles too pedestrian, quadrangles and pentagons are also available. Unconventional arrangements are the order of the day in a dynamic revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Aspects of Love,” which opened on Thursday at the Lyric Theater in London. (It is a lot raunchier than Lloyd Webber’s most recent work, which invited the audience to “sing unto the Lord with the harp” during the coronation of King Charles III.) This “Aspects of Love” is exquisitely produced and superbly performed, but — like many a real-life libertine — it eventually buckles under the weight of its excesses. Alex, 18, invites Rose to stay with him at a villa owned by George (Michael Ball), his rich uncle, and the two fall in love.

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