Carrie Cracknell Archives - North West End UK

1Aug

By Dave SmithNo Comments

London

The Grapes Of Wrath – National Theatre

For a novel written almost 100 years ago, the parallels with today are striking. A family of overcrowded refugees trying to make their way to safety, to employment and a home. Yet along the way people won’t even recognise them as human and are happy to cheat them, underpay them and generally take advantage of them. The systemic exploitation of the desperate hasn’t changed from the 1930s until today. Inevitably adaptations sacrifice depth for brevity. Frank Galati’s 1990 adaptation making its London debut under director Carrie Cracknell suffers from this, particularly in character development leading to less impact when some characters don’t make it to the end of the long drive. We are told about Tom’s great relationship with his grandpa but spend so little time in it that it does n...

Carmen – The Metropolitan Opera

Carrie Cracknell’s contemporary take aims at reinvigorating this classic with its resetting to present-day America but sadly is mostly firing blanks in its representation of a world that I’m not sure most Americans would even recognise. In an unnamed town somewhere along the border with Mexico, naïve army corporal Don José (Piotr Beczała) falls head over heads in love with Carmen (Aigul Akhmetshina), a seductive and free-spirited girl working at the ammunitions factory that he and his men are guarding. Infatuated, Don José abandons his childhood sweetheart, girl-next-door Micaela (Angel Blue) and neglects his military duties only to lose the fickle Carmen to the glamorous rodeo rider, Escamillo (Kyle Ketelsen). So far so good but given that much of the allure of the original is its s...

The Deep Blue Sea – National Theatre

Terence Rattigan was one of the finest playwrights of his generation and over the course of many years he wrote some outstanding pieces of work for the theatre. The Deep Blue Sea is probably the best play from his repertoire, an absolute masterpiece set in post-war Britain and centred around a woman caught between worlds and realising that passion can sometimes suffocate and harm. Rattigan’s beautifully constructed play explores many issues including those of mental health, self-worth and self-esteem. The play is set over one day in a flat in West London, it’s 1952 where we first meet Hester Collyer (Helen McCrory) trying to “end it all” but through the intervention of other people who also live in the building, she thankfully fails. Hester just needs to be heard, to be loved and ...