![]() Paul Wills's monumental, elegant and surgical set features long windows with blank white panes that offer no views. The sense of characters held in a steel trap is chillingly conjured up from the opening moments, with a silvery shiver of notes from Adam Cork's fine soundscape - music which contains the hint of a dying chorale - and clever metallic lighting, by Paule Constable. However, Grandage's production does a wonderful job of putting flesh on these bones. Some of Ravenhill's lines are so stripped of character that they might have been written by a machine, one of those Mamet-logues that seems to run around writing jerky dialogue for plays: It uses the sort of menacing and menaced, pared speech that is sometimes thought of as Pinteresque, but actually Pinter's dialogue is usually weirder, more baroque and exact you might not always know which character it belongs to, but you know it belongs to Pinter. It doesn't come close to the great dystopic play of the last ten years, Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, whose strength came from creating its own creepy myth, and which is probably the only 21st-century play to have inspired paintings by a major artist - Paula Rego.įor too much of the time The Cut is diminished by savourless, truncated dialogue. The mechanical goriness of this has a dramatic effect, but it doesn't amount to a sustained imaginative vision. The really sinister ramifications of the op are glimpsed in the attitude of an eager victim: a healthy young man, given to yogic ruminations, who looks to annihilation as a relief and welcomes pain with a sort of sun salute. He's seen at his task only briefly: there's a swift, inexplicit surgical procedure and a flood of red light over the stage McKellen peels off some blood-spattered latex gloves. There's a huge prison population, and a university community that is kept under tight control.Īt the centre is the not altogether surprising secret of the play: the profession of the main character who, unsuspected (or so he thinks) by his family, slices people up for a living, on behalf of the state. An underclass proles around looking stunned as they bring on instruments and serve tea. Set at some indeterminate point in the future, situated in an unspecified city and country whose citizens are governed by unexplained rules and harsh divisions, The Cut is a black parable in which all the nightmare buttons are hit early on. What Ravenhill has produced is scaffolding rigged up with alarms. There's too little flesh on either plot or dialogue. It's a fascinating choice, and in Michael Grandage's hypnotic production, with first-rate performances from Deborah Findlay and Ian McKellen, it almost looks like a significant one. ![]() Now, with The Cut - you can hear the roll of his talent in the swagger of the title - he's changed direction again, upped his ambition and put a dystopia on the stage. At last year's Edinburgh Festival he got up alone on stage to give, in Product, a caustic portrait of the movie industry. He has paid tribute to Oscar Wilde in Handbag, and, in Mother Clap's Molly House, reconstructed the lives of 18th-century homosexuals. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.Īny changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel.Ravenhill hasn't hung around repeating himself over the last decade. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month.įor cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here.Ĭhange the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages.
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