(Not) the End of the World review – a terrifying, daring look at climate hypocrisies
The multiverse in Chris Bush’s Kein Weltuntergang, directed by Katie Mitchell, lays bare our contradictions and complicity in the climate crisis
May 2020
Extra legroom and no interval: Germany plans for post-lockdown theatre
Berliner Ensemble unveils auditorium with most chairs ripped out, but some left in pairs, for a socially distanced audience who can visit the toilet during the play
February 2019
I don't think I've ever been so hurt by a piece of art. People with disability deserve better
Anthea Williams
Stage director Anthea Williams walked away from one of Sydney festival’s biggest shows crushed. ‘How disability is understood affects me every day of my life’
March 2017
Lars Eidinger: 'The Nazis cramp us Germans up. But Brits have a Third Reich fascination'
The great German stage actor is thrilling new audiences with SS-GB and Personal Shopper. Our writer talks menace and murder with him over schnitzel in Berlin
February 2017
Beware of Pity review – found in translation
Barbican, London Simon McBurney’s fizzing take on Stefan Zweig’s 1939 novel transcends language barriers… and can still be seen online
Richard III review – a thoroughly modern game of thrones
Lars Eidinger is a visceral, manipulative monarch in Thomas Ostermeier’s explosive German-language production
Theatre blog
We're in crisis – so why has Ostermeier stripped Richard III of politics?
Michael Billington
Beware of Pity review – Simon McBurney astonishes with vision of a world on edge
Simon McBurney: Beware of Pity is chillingly resonant in the Trump era
January 2017
Nazism comes knocking: German playwright probes the lure of fascism
In his play Winter Solstice, Roland Schimmelpfennig seeks to explore how rightwing rhetoric can ambush even the liberal-minded
November 2016
Stranger things: Albert Camus' enigmatic outsider hits Berlin
The Schaubühne is staging the absurdist classic with three actors sharing the main role. Director Philipp Preuss reflects on what ‘otherness’ means in society
June 2016
How we staged Shakespeare
Thomas Ostermeier: Richard III? He's a rock star, a standup comedian
The Forbidden Zone review – poisoned by a ‘higher form of killing’
May 2016
The Forbidden Zone review – Katie Mitchell probes the science of war
Mitchell, playwright Duncan Macmillan, video artist Leo Warner and a band of onstage camera operators deliver a close-up view of wartime dilemmas
Ophelias Zimmer review – Katie Mitchell brings Hamlet's real ghost into focus
Mitchell, Alice Birch and Chloe Lamford deliver a forensic study of an imprisoned Ophelia, stalked by the Prince of Denmark
Theatre blog
Plan your week’s theatre: top tickets
A show featuring three and a half tonnes of coal opens in Cardiff, Katie Mitchell frees Ophelia from Hamlet at the Royal Court, and Daniel Evans makes his directorial swansong in Sheffield
April 2016
Alan Cumming to return to Edinburgh festival as cabaret singer
Lineup includes The Good Wife actor, who last graced EIF in The Bacchae in 2007, presenting Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs
February 2016
Beware of Pity review – world wars and refugee crises collide in blood-soaked horror
Schaubühne, Berlin Simon McBurney’s production, based on Stefan Zweig’s 1938 novel, brings past and present together in a desperate vision of failed empire
January 2016
Sexism on the stage – meet the women tearing up the script
