... Scarred by the past GERARD VAN WERSON on emotional turmoil ROYAL COURT Beside Herself SARAH Daniels' wittily titled play begins with a tableau of wicked ladies in Hell, clad in scarlet leaning against supermarket shelves stacked with crisps and biscuits. This humorous opening, with its dreadful puns Can't Salome help? She got enough on her plate soon darkens as we see Evelyn (Dinah Stabb) ...

... A Murder Is Arranged WIMBLEDON WIMBLEDON Theatre continues its courageous fight for survival with Mark Furness' latest presentation of the ubiquitous Mrs Christie, packaged with a stylish Proscenium Publications programme, plentifully illustrated, containing an erudite and well-researched article on the thriller genre by David Cheshire called Be Thrilled Be Chilled, which is at least as ...

... The art of the matter GERARD van WERSON on an artist's relation to 'real life' ALMEIDA When We Dead Awaken IBSEN'S last play--famouslj acclaimed by the young James Joyce as his finest, and although dense anc packed with thought--It is just tt prevent excessive pondering that Ibser requires to be acted--is given a fine production here, with an arresting Expressionist set by Peter J Davison ...

... Othello OFF-BROADWAY WITHOUT gimmicks and with a virtually unknown cast, William Gas- kill has proved that, with the right direction, American actors can provide a satisfying and gripping production of Shakespeare. Othello, presented by Theatre for a New Audience mainly for schools at the CSC Theatre is staged in the round, with no scenery and minimal props, but with excellent costumes by ...

... You're Gonna Be Alright Jamie Boy ETCETERA SHARP Edge Theatre company is a newly formed group who specialise in turning profits into plays by deploying the proceeds of a retailing fashion business into shows like the British premiere of You're Gonna Be Alright Jamie Boy by Canadian playwright David Freeman--who is a cerebral palsy sufferer. The play caused a furore when it was first ...

... Hamlet LYTTLETON FIRST seen in Rumania in 1985, theatre audiences there inevitably identified the oppressive regime of the Player King Claudius (Ion Cocieru) with the dictator Ceausescu, and immediately after the revolution Hamlet (Ion Caramitru) became vice president. The set (Dan Jitianu) and costumes (Juliana Mantoc and Niculae Ularu) are sub-Ruritanian, a blend of late 19th century ...

... Blood Wedding BLOOMSBURY AN ARRESTING production of Lorca's 1933 play, a curious mix of the lyrical, the fantastic, and the tragic- the first play in his great trilogy dealing with the passions and frustrations of the peasantry. Ably directed by Edward Wilson, this translation by Michael Dewell and Carmen Zapata captures the simplicity of the poetic language used, and the ballad elements ...

... Lost horizons PETER HEPPLE on the man who would be king of his own castle GARRICK Fences WITH Fences, which won a Tony award in 1987, August Wilson, whose plays Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone dealt with quite specific areas of black American experience with a historic background, launched himself into drama on a scale akin to that of Arthur Miller or even Ibsen. ...

... The Scottish Ballet GLASGOW ADDING to their Russian repertoire which includes Oleg Vinogradov's Petrushka and Divertissements culled from the Kirov, the Scottish Ballet presented Vinogradov's staging of Pa quita, in a triple bill at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. In an attempt to emulate the gran deur of the 19th century classic, the company has been subjected to several months of coaching by ...

... The Real World? SOHO POLY THE REAL World? deserves its accompanying question mark because Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay poses many questions but provides no answers. The English premiere at the Soho Poly is a new translation by Alison Kcan and Lisa Forrell, who also directs. The catalyst for the action is the play which young Claude presents to his mother in which he exposes his view of ...

... The Rape of Lucretia BRITTEN THEATRE CERI Sherlock's production of this strange work, a curious combination of the angular and the graceful the lyrical and the formal, brings out well the virtuosity of the score. The modern dress used for the chorus and for the entire cast during the opening and the closing sequences also effectively point up Richard Maxwell Aylwin's designs. As the doomed ...

... The Empire BRENTFORD STEVE Shill follows his acclaimed Ode to Sir. Cecilia, an award winner in the 1989 Sunday Times National Student Drama Festival, with a three-hander, daringly imaginative in its use of the kind of dream-into-reality which the cinema and television have mastered, but which proves elusive, in the mam, in terms ot theatre at Watermans Arts Centre. On a tight-rope of fact ...