Glass Kill Bluebeard Imp Faith Hope Charity

I've had a good week at the theatre.

Caryl Churchill's new show (4plays called Glass, Kill, Bluebeard and Imp) last night at the Royal Court. Marvellous. Brilliant writing, great acting. Funny, clever, slightly sinister. Great circus performer. Intellectual rather than emotional. Very elegantly staged to hang together with a juggler/ acrobat performing in front of the curtain during the changeovers in the first half. Not sure I can say what it is about exactly, but it's something to do with how stories lurk about in our lives and interfere with "the facts". How we don't only not know what to believe, we actively sabotage ourselves from having a chance.

And Alexander Zledin's Faith Hope and Charity at the National. Great, just great. Better for me even than Love which was the first time I saw his work. The same schtick - people boiling a kettle or making toast - this time in a community centre where they come for free lunch and choir practice. But this time he flirts with plot, and although it made me a bit nervous to begin with, they really judge it well and I found myself laughing and crying, at the same time. The amazing and revolutionary thing about his work i think is that it truly represents the characters on the stage which is genuinely contemporary, powerful, urgent.