Olivier awards 2016: Judi Dench and Rufus Norris deserve their statuettes
Mark Lawson
Dench deserved to break records for her psychologically probing in turn The Winter’s Tale, and Rufus Norris saw his vision for the National Theatre validated. But the Oliviers still need to diversify and modernise
Moving The Maids from France to the US adds a powerful racial subtext to Genet’s original, while Anouilh’s Welcome Home, Captain Fox! fares less well when set in America. Not all plays benefit from gaining a new setting
Pause and effect: tradition of multiple intervals gets a revival
Between them, two current stagings of Ibsen and Chekhov classics offer audiences five intermissions. While some see an art form reasserting itself, the move comes with a number of hitches
Can you recognise a playwright from their first work?
Debut plays can be instant classics and false starts. From Ibsen’s Catilina to Shaffer’s Five Finger Exercise, they often contain thrilling hints of where a dramatist is heading
Harley Granville Barker's 116-year-old Agnes Colander is finally brought to life
A previously unperformed 1900 play about a proto-feminist painter has received a rehearsed reading at the National Theatre. Is a full revival now in order?
From new writing at the Royal Court to revivals at the NT, theatre schedules suggest that plays by women are finally getting better representation – but there’s still cause for concern
Bah, humbug! How Christmas theatre is turning off the twinkle
Mark Lawson
Complex writing, leftfield family shows and thoroughly bleak dramas make theatre stages far from jolly this Christmas. Praise be, then, for the new wave of pseudo-panto
Unearthed Arthur Miller play is the first sign of a budding genius
Mark Lawson
A lost work is often buried for a reason, but the recent rediscovery of a seminal Miller play, No Villain, confirms his brilliance and anticipates later masterpieces
The Homecoming and Little Eyolf: new views stay faithful to Pinter and Ibsen
Mark Lawson
The temptation to update the text of an old play for a modern audience is resisted in two productions that refresh the originals in more intelligent ways
All the world's a stage: how theatre fell in love with itself
Mark Lawson
From Gypsy to Harlequinade and The Moderate Soprano, London’s theatres are awash with shows about showbiz. Are they a valid celebration of the power of art, or self-indulgent luvvieness?
New projects at the National Theatre and Chichester Festival theatre substantially rework the material of two great authors, raising questions of fidelity and freedom
The power of shame: why Measure for Measure is more relevant than ever
Mark Lawson
Measure for Measure has been staged three times in London this year. It goes to show just how resonant its themes of sexual licentiousness and twisted democracy are today – especially in Russia
Are these the 10 best Shakespeare screen adaptations?
Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, joins Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight in my top 10 films based on the Stratford playwright’s works
Variety's last hurrah: Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck at the Palladium
The jokes were dated and non-PC, the delivery perfectly timed: for one night only, the showbiz survivors teamed up to create a piece of theatre history
You Me Bum Bum Train: my trip with the Kafkaesque theatrical cult
The secretive immersive-theatre sensation is back for another sellout run. It’s an uplifting and unsettling experience – think Disneyland meets Dismaland
Are British theatres falling out of love with bricks and mortar?
Mark Lawson
From radical reinventions of the proscenium arch, to productions that march outside of the theatre altogether, the boards of the British stage are dissolving under a wave of innovation
Want to lift your spirits? Try four hours of Greek tragedy
Mark Lawson
The Oresteia starts with a child sacrifice – and then gets darker. But it managed to cheer me up even more than the tremendously funny Rules for Living
About 115 results for Mark Lawson's theatre studies
