In dialogue with researchers

SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA.  Photo: John Cobb

SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA finally had its first performance run last week at Hoxton Hall, and I'm very happy to say it was really well received. Flo London called it "Impactful theatre...  Necessary theatre", while Beyond the Curtain said it was "a stimulating, confronting and eye-opening piece of theatre". But the best piece of writing about the play was actually written before the author had even seen it, and that's Natasha Remoundou-Howley's programme note. "The stage" she writes "becomes a contested space of citizenship and rights: where belonging, inclusion, and diversity are questioned, scrutinized, and rehearsed. This is theatre that demands visibility because the agents of this claim are refugee women performing their inalienable right to exist, to be heard, and to be seen."

I first encountered Natasha's research and critical writing when I was planning the play, I suppose around 2022. I Googled "Suppliants Aeschylus Syria", and a piece she had written in 2017 appeared. It was called The Suppliants of Syria: Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement in Refugee Performances of Greek Tragedy. So that was where our title came from. Some time later I sent Natasha a note via her Academia page, thanking her for the article and explaining what we were up to. Over a year passed, and I thought no more about it, until in September 2025 I got a very apologetic reply: Natasha had somehow missed seeing the message, and was excited to hear more. We met in Dublin, and now she's a board member of our Irish company!

Revisiting that original article today, I realise it's not so preoccupied with Aeschylus' Suppliants as I had thought. The play is discussed, but the main focus of the piece is on some other contemporary pieces of theatre which are based on Greek models, and which involve female Syrian refugees. One of these, Queens of Syria, I saw when it came to London in 2016. I also made use of the film version as part of our workshop for THE PROMISED LAND in 2018, with Zoe Lafferty, who had directed the London staging, coming to talk to our group. Natasha's article recounts how this was largely a platform for testimony, and how its international reach foundered when the US refused artistic visas to the women on the grounds that they were refugees living in Jordan.

That was in 2014. Two years after that, the EU-Turkey deal brought brought about a situation where the vast majority of Syrian refugees cannot travel at all. I came to understand the background and details of this cruel policy through a dialogue with another academic friend, İlke Şanlıer who leads the Migration Research Centre at Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey, and who became our co-producer for the play. The fact that the women were confined to Turkey shaped both the subject of our play and its form. As in Queens of Syria there is specific personal testimony - but for our project it was impossible for this to be delivered directly from the stage. Instead we had to film the women's interviews, and this necessity came to symbolise the wider issues of exclusion and othering which surround the discourse on migration. This in turn led to the use of the Greek theatre model - three professional performers set against a large community Chorus - to create our dramaturgical structure. 

It’s important for our work that we should be self-aware in making the piece, and so move the audience towards a similar reflexivity. Simply putting a refugee’s personal story on stage does make a statement, but as an intercultural theatre company we also need to consider the act of watching, the role of the spectator, and so the role of the society in which the event is happening. A carefully considered contextualisation deepens the meaning of the testimony: without this, it is far too easy for a British or European audience to become self-satisfied in the mere act of listening to people from the Arab region. In the case of Syrian people confined to Turkey by the EU-Turkey deal, there is a real responsibility to be considered, and this goes much deeper than the specifics of one particular situation. Why do Europeans exclude people from the region? Why the  prejudice? Why the constant assertion of superiority? Why the fear?

Facing these questions in dialogue with the material offered to us by the Syrian women, we found ourselves making a piece which confronted the rise of fascism across the world, across Europe, and particularly in our own communities. We realised that there is nothing specifically Arabic or Islamic about the institutional cruelties practised and indeed performed by ISIS: this sort of fascistic tendency is present in our own society, and made manifest in the prejudices displayed against refugees, the demonisation of Islam, and the attitude which many men continue to display towards women. 

At the centre of the performance was a debate with the audience, and I think that symbolised the way in which the play placed itself within a discourse. I'm incredibly grateful to the researchers who helped to generate that. 

The Death of the Mask-Maker

Masks for Aeschylus' Suppliants by Thanos Vovolis

A few months ago, I had an online chat with the Greek designer Thanos Vovolis. I had been thinking about the use of masks in Ancient Greek theatre, wanting to employ them in SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA. Thanos is a superb mask maker, and his approach is rooted in deep research, both archival and practical. It was Thanos who really developed an understanding that the Greek theatrical mask was more like a helmet than a face covering, and that its internal echo was what made it a powerful resonator for the voice in open-air spaces. “It was designed for epic, mythic communication”, he said to me, “for the gods to call across the mountains.”

Thanos is very conscious of just how anachronistic the mask has become, even in his own lifetime. Hyper-naturalism is the fashion now, even in the avant-garde, and there is a deep distrust of mythic scale. As the Epstein controversy shows, we relish the mundanity, the squalor of those who dare to lead us. No gods and heroes now. 

There is one exception to this prevailing theatrical trend, and that is the Théâtre du Soleil, under its extraordinary octogenarian director Ariane Mnouchkine. As Thanos said to me, Mnouchkine’s work, which is always rooted in the mask, seeks to find the sacred even in the grubby histories of the present age. Working with the actors of the Soleil in CRE-ACTORS and THE LEGEND OF EUROPA, I’ve also realised how much the company’s use of mask (coupled with costume and props) emphasises the materiality from which a character emerges. It’s a Marxian approach at the same time as it’s a mythic one. As Peter Brook used to say, a theatre that combines the Holy and the Rough. 

A masked performer in Mnouchkine's L'Ile d'Or

On February 14th, Erhard Stiefel, who had been the Théâtre du Soleil’s mask maker for many years, passed away. He was, of course, still working to the end. He wasn’t particularly famous or noticed - unlike Mnouchkine or musician Jean-Jacques Lemêtre, he was not to be seen nightly at the Cartoucherie. He worked quietly in the background. But Mnouchkine constantly impresses upon the actors that the masks are “nos maîtres” (our masters). Their holiness is what enables the characters’ spirits to enter into the performers’ bodies.

Five days later, on February 19th, Ariane Mnouchkine finally announced that she would have a successor as director at the Théâtre du Soleil: Sylvian Creuzevault.  She is approaching her 87th birthday, so retirement has been on the cards for a while. But two things struck me about her timing. One was that she made the announcement in a speech that was also a response to the accusations of sexual harassment and cult-like behaviour that have been made against her company in the media - accusations that all the company members I know regard as malicious. (There's a useful analysis of this here). To be dragged into the world of the petty would not appeal to Ariane. The second was just how quickly the announcement came after the passing of Erhard Stiefel. Without that high priest of her theatre, the creator of the sacred, the lone figure emerging from the stillness of the Holy of Holies with the actors’ spiritual masters in this hands - without Stiefel, Mnouchkine’s practice must, of necessity, come to rest.  

There are other mask makers, of course. Thanos is a great one, and so is Erin Jacques, who has made the beautiful pieces we are putting on stage this week. But after decades of intimate collaboration, it feels right that at this moment, she should finally step away. 

Performing Possibility

Over the last year, Border Crossings Ireland has been leading a European Youth project called PERFORMING POSSIBILITY, working with our great friends at Teatro dell'Argine and Opera di Padre Marella in Bologna, and with the YMCA in Cork. This post takes the form of a conversation between Brenda Musiani, who works at Opera di Padre Marella, Rowan Mohan who travelled to Bologna from Cork, and two young Afghan sisters who now live in Italy: Om Hani and Hosna Yalani.

Brenda: I will start with some questions. What did you expect from the project? What was your idea of the project at the beginning? 

Rowan: I think it was a way of capturing what is like living in Europe, with young people's experiences from all over the world, whether that is people who were born in Europe or people from outside Europe coming to live in Europe. Sharing our experiences, finding similarities and differences, sharing our stories and what is like for us. 

Om Hani: The first idea of the project was the idea of meeting people from outside Italy, sharing our ideas, getting to know each other and know other cultures. 

Brenda: Do you think that meeting with people from different countries and sharing ideas strengthen our sense of belonging to Europe? 

Rowan: Definitely. I think it is really important to put different countries in communication and for everyone to see different experiences. Because without that we’re isolated, we only have our own view and things can’t be done on our own. We need a community to bring change, and I think change is important in Europe. 

Hosna and Om Hani: We agree! 

Brenda: It is very important to share thoughts and to really be together: also to be physically in one place to connect with people. 

Rowan: I think it was really important to capture that in the digital outputs, so more people can see it. And it was good from my perspective. I have experience in digital media, but Hosna and Om Hani, what was it like to have that experience with digital creativity and to have to deal with creating content?

Hosna: It was our first time doing this kind of activity, where we were the ones that needed to create the digital output. Also it is the first time that we have participated in a project like this, where people from other countries come here. It was interesting and we learned a lot of new things. 

Rowan: I have to say that one of my favourite experiences in Bologna was capturing the interviews with both of you. It was very impactful to get that account of your experiences and thank you so much for sharing that. I think that if it was the only piece of media captured in the entire week, I would have been happy with that. 

Hosna: We also had a great time with you, and we also want to say thank you. 

Rowan: I think it was really important to capture your story, not only for us but also for other people to hear and to know. It was really impactful. 

Brenda: We really can see the importance of doing all these things, for us in the project but also for all the people that will see our digital outputs and that will share those. In your opinion, is it important to share all these outputs and to do this kind of projects, also in the perspective of future generations?

Om Hani: Definitely! In this project there were many different cultures and people together, and that was very important to me. I liked the fact that we had the chance to live for a week with people from another country, and did all these activities together. 

Rowan: I completely agree.

Brenda: One last question. What are the reflections that you bring home with you after this project?

Rowan: I think I’m bringing home the perspectives of everyone I met. Seeing so many different cultures and so many people with different perspectives of the world, opinions of where they are in Europe, what being European means... I think I’m coming back home with a wider mind and a wider view of what the world is, what Europe means to other people and what it should be. 

Hosna: I’m bringing home with me the meeting of new people and new cultures. How different people from different countries get along with each other, even with cultural differences. 

Om Hani: I really liked this project because it was very nice to meet people from a different culture and to get to know them. The time spent with each other was really precious since there was no judgement and we could talk openly about our opinions. The most difficult part though was to talk in English, but even if there was a language barrier we did communicate in our own ways.

Brenda: What I see is that you all have similarities in your reflections and that’s a big thing because in my opinion this project now belongs to everyone and it became an experience that you all lived together. 

This project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. However, European Commission and Irish National Agency cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

2025

THE LEGEND OF EUROPA - Sanam Nederi

Regular readers of this blog (I know you're there - and I'm very grateful!) will know that I usually mark the turn of the year with a review of Border Crossings' activities over the previous 12 months, and a look forward into the New Year. This year it seems a slightly strange exercise, as we've already been devoting time to looking back at our work in our CHECKPOINT project, which marks 2025 as the 30th anniversary of the organisation's founding. At the end of November, we held a celebratory event at Hoxton Hall (video version coming soon), which included a series of short new plays made in response to our past work by the next generation of theatre-makers: pupils at Chiswick School, 6th formers at St Charles College, BA World Performance students from East 15, and MFA students from Rose Bruford. As the evening went on, and the pieces we were re-visiting became more distant from the present, there were new plays by the original artists: Brian Woolland re-visited Anna Kovács from DOUBLE TONGUE, to see what she was doing a quarter of a century on; and Mahesh Dattani wrote BRAVELY FIGHTS THE QUEEN, which brought the warring Trivedi sisters from BRAVELY FOUGHT THE QUEEN back together in the present day. It was one kind of great joy to have Anna performed by the Hungarian film star Dorka Gryllus, alongside Andrew French as Anna's new partner Mark; and another kind of joy to see Harvey Virdi and Siddiqua Akhtar return to the roles they had played in 1996. The final piece was one I wrote myself, to be performed by Nisha Dassyne, my dear wife who has been so crucial to the company's work in so many ways; some very visible, some known only to herself and me. THE DEATH OF PROSPERO revisited THE TEMPEST as performed in India in 1995 (not strictly a Border Crossings project, but undoubtedly the piece that generated the company's ethos and raison d'être), Dev Virahsawmy's adaptation of the same play as TOUFANN, and (more obliquely) THE GREAT EXPERIMENT. "Prospero is dead" it ended. "Where do we go from here?"

CHECKPOINT - Harvey Virdi and Siddiqua Akhtar

The question feels horribly urgent as we move into 2026. The last few decades have seen the dismantling of all the old certainties that Prospero could be held to represent: patriarchy, colonialism, hierarchy.... It's been a necessary process, and one towards which I hope we have made a genuine contribution. But, as Prospero's daughter Kordelia says in her eulogy at his funeral, we have not put anything in their place. It is that absence of vision, that failure of imagination, that has opened a political space into which the radical right has stepped, with increasing confidence and aggression during the year that has just ended. This is a global phenomenon: the Gaza genocide, Russia's ongoing attacks on Ukraine, the besieging of asylum hotels in Essex and elsewhere, the racist march in London, Trump's personalisation and privatisation of the entire American polity - all of these make manifest the total impoverishment of our public discourse, the reduction of human beings to one-word labels which in turn become pretexts for othering, prejudice and violence. As I said when I introduced the CHECKPOINT performance, this is the reason why active and deliberate remembering has become so important today: because the telling of complex, nuanced and engaged histories offers a form of resistance to the reductive and the prejudiced narratives promulgated by the "disruptors". And in resistance, there is also hope.

SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA

So in 2026, we will continue the process of remembering that CHECKPOINT represents. Our archivist, Gary Haines, will put our records into order, while our researcher Dr. Jasmin ‘Ofamo’oni works on the book of the company's history that we'll be publishing during the year. Our next project, SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA, arrives on the London stage in early March, and this too represents a kind of remembering. Back in 1999, we co-produced another response to Aeschylus' Suppliants, this one dealing with the Kosovo conflict as envisioned by South African writer Tamantha Hammerschlag and Greek director Elli Papakonstantinou. Both that play and the new one make use of an ancient text, the second oldest dramatic text in existence, to enable a fuller, more historicised and ethically informed discourse around current issues of warfare, displacement and gender. Standing in a long tradition of theatre as an enabler of democracy matters deeply right now.  

We'll also be continuing the major European projects that our Irish company has initiated in 2025. THE LEGEND OF EUROPA is another dialogue with the Greeks, in this case a set of contemporary variations on the continent's foundational myth, which makes it abundantly clear that Europe is defined and sustained  by what is outside its borders. The play that is evolving slowly through through workshops in Ireland, Italy, France and Sweden, involving many artists of both European and migrants backgrounds, attempts to situate itself in the current turmoil as an assertion of common humanity, redefining the continent through its mythological bases as an open and collaborative space. Of course, in order to make it, we need to generate just such a space ourselves. Being the change we want to see in the world.

A Happy New Year to you all.

Jane Plastow

Jane Plastow in Africa

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Prof. Jane Plastow, one of the influential academics in the field of African Theatre who have for some decades populated the University of Leeds, and run the Studio Theatre there. We took The Dilemma of a Ghost there back in 2007 - undoubtedly the best informed audience we had for that piece of African theatre in the UK! I'd always mentally grouped Jane with Martin Banham, James Gibbs, Michael Etherton, David Kerr and our former Chair the late Alastair Niven as the pioneers who made the study of African literatures, and especially performance, not only legitimate but essential for modern scholarship. Reading the obituaries, I realise that Jane was actually quite a bit younger than the rest of that coterie: she was 66. Professors are supposed to keep on generating research long after most others have retired, so it's all the sadder that Jane has gone. 

That doesn't mean she hasn't left a terrific legacy. I got to know her as one of the Editors of the excellent series of books on African Theatre: I've contributed to several volumes and always loved the breadth of material included, which always embraces practitioners as well as scholars.  Unlike the British theatre, which likes to practice a weird inverse snobbery towards the academy, African theatres flourish in academic settings - most notably the University of Ibadan's Department of Theatre Arts. African theatre-makers knew that Jane's work mattered: no less a figure than Wole Soyinka attended her inaugural lecture. This synergy is related to the importance of theatre to activism in African contexts: it's no accident that one of Jane's edited books is called Theatre Matters.  For her and her African colleagues, theatre absolutely matters. It is part of liberation struggles, education, empowerment and democracy. The rest of us should learn from it.

Jane's activism was passed on to her son William: and it adds to the sadness of her early death that it has happened while William is being detained for his role in the Palestine Action protest against the Elbit Systems factory in August last year. His trial date has been set for April 2026, meaning that he will have been detained for 21 months before he is finally tried. Jane believed this to be the longest anyone will have ever been held in jail awaiting trial on protest-related charges. Custody time limits clearly state that defendants should not spend more than six months in jail awaiting trial. 

Jane was understandably outraged at the way her son was being treated. Even if Palestine Action is to be regarded as a terrorist organisation (and I emphatically believe that it should not), William is certainly not guilty of crimes against people or threatening lives. Jane had offered £50,000 bail, and agreed that William could live in her house, with all internet access removed, his body tagged, his phone and passport confiscated, and still the bail was denied.

It is deeply distressing that Jane has passed away with her son's case remaining unresolved.

WRITE THEATRE - Guest blog by Brian Woolland

In Border Crossings' 30th anniversary year, playwright Brian Woolland looks back over his long association with the company, and forward to this autumn's WRITE THEATRE course, in association with Border Crossings Laboratory.

FOOL FOR LOVE (1995). Maria Gough & Miles Harvey

My first contact with Border Crossings was 30 years ago, when I saw Michael Walling’s production of Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love. As with many of Shepard’s plays, it’s extraordinarily evocative, the characterisation is complex, the language very rich. Michael’s direction brought out all these qualities, but he didn’t impose himself on the play. The audience was given space to respond to the compellingly enigmatic qualities of the play. 

Soon after that, Michael Walling and I established an excellent working relationship that continues to thrive because we share a vision of theatre as a social and collaborative art form that honours all the participants in the process – including the audience.

This blog is specifically about the forthcoming playwriting course, WRITE THEATRE, that  I’ll be jointly leading later this autumn, but it is also about the diverse nature of the collaborative process in theatre; and how running WRITE THEATRE has been as helpful to me in my own writing as I hope it has been for those who have taken part.

Collaboration and Border Crossings

None of the plays I’ve written for Border Crossings have been devised, but they have all involved various kinds of collaboration. Sometimes that takes the form of a simple dialogue about an early draft of the script; sometimes (usually at a later stage in the process) working alongside Michael and actors, trying out ideas, responding to suggestions. This can be a kind of ‘trying out,’ an opportunity to see how other people respond to material, a way of looking at what I’ve written through other people’s eyes. It’s crucial in such a process to avoid ‘defending’ the writing. There’s a temptation to tell the actors ‘This is what I intended.’ It’s much more useful to see and hear what others make of those early drafts. That word ‘make’ is central here because it gets at something that’s often forgotten when material is presented to an audience at any stage in its development: that the audience is active in making meaning, whether in a theatre auditorium, actors or students in workshop studio or a colleague in discussion over a coffee.

WHEN NOBODY RETURNS (2016). Tariq Jordan & Bayan Schbib

In the case of When Nobody Returns (which draws on The Odyssey and is focused as much on Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, as on his father) I led a series of workshops with young people from military families before attempting to write anything of the play itself. My blog for Border Crossings, Playing with Greek Fire, discusses how important these workshops were in the development of that play. 

In advance of the workshops, I formulated a set of what I call key focusing questions; questions that would not only inform and drive the workshops, but would also go on to drive the explorations I undertook in writing the play itself. These can be summarised as follows:

• What do we mean by ‘home’?
• How can people return from war without bringing the war with them?
• When is it right to forget? When is it right to resist the temptation to forget?
• How does somebody on the edge of adulthood negotiate a sense of their own identity in relation to an absent parent?

The young people were remarkably open and their responses very revealing, giving me a strong sense of the emotional landscape of the play. 

The idea of Key Focusing Questions is something I’ve found very useful. Keeping that uppermost in my mind, rather than what I want to say, is a way of trying to ensure that I’m using the writing as a process of collaborative exploration and discovery. It also keeps me more open and alert to the contributions of others. I’m not denying my authorship, but, rather, giving it full rein. 

WRITE THEATRE and collaboration

WRITE THEATRE: actors read the scripts

Playwrights have to spend a great deal of time alone on the hard graft of developing a playscript. But writing for theatre is essentially different from writing novels, short stories or poetry in that collaborations are at the heart of theatre; and that is reflected in the way that WRITE THEATRE courses are organised – with collaborative workshops, open discussions, practical exercises and one-on-one tutorials. 

The courses run over two weekends a fortnight apart. The first weekend comprises a series of workshops. Writer-participants work as a group, individually and in pairs, undertaking active writing exercises exploring elements such as dialogue, characterisation, plotting and thinking visually. These are not lectures but active workshops. Rib Davis (my colleague and co-leader) and I always take part in each other’s sessions. In the spirit of collaboration which we aim to foster throughout, we work with you, the course participants. The small numbers ensure that your contributions are always valued. The workshops are designed to enable you to find your own voice. It’s your ideas we work with.

In the two week gap between the first and second weekend of the course, every participant writes a short scene.

In the second weekend: course directors and professional actors explore these scenes, encouraging and enabling further development. That is what makes the course unique. The actors we work with are all highly experienced professionals who are enthusiastic about helping new writers, and know how to develop new writing by workshopping early drafts.

It’s not surprising, given the spirit of collaboration that we encourage throughout, that Rib and I have often find the course unblocks our own writing.

Applying for a place on the course

There is a strict upper limit of 8 participants on any WRITE THEATRE playwriting course. We do not ask for qualifications as a pre-requisite for acceptance on the course, nor do we ask participants to have had previous experience of writing plays, but it is essential to have a strong interest in theatre.

WRITE THEATRE courses take place at The Cockpit, Gateforth Street, near Marylebone.

If you’d like to enrol on our next course on the weekends October 25th – 26th and November 8th – 9th, go to the Enrolment page of the WRITE THEATRE website.

If you wish to enrol for the whole course (i.e. BOTH weekends), the fee is £500. We are offering a 10% discount to anyone signed up in response to this blog or the Border Crossings newsletter. Quote BC25.

To encourage young writers we offer a 50% discount to a limited number of writers under the age of 30. 

Evita and the politics of celebrity

Rachel Zegler in Evita at the London Palladium

I'd so far steered clear of the unstoppable juggernaut called The Jamie Lloyd Company. It all feels a bit too mogul formulaic for me: hire a mega-star, put them in a play people have heard of, hire a West End theatre, charge a fortune for tickets, give it a grunge aesthetic...   In fairness, there have clearly been times when it's worked incredibly well: the James McAvoy Cyrano sounds fascinating, for example - but then there was the Sigourney Weaver Tempest....  

Evita felt like a better bet: it's a piece that belongs in the West End, that really is a star vehicle, and (like most musicals) benefits from a bit of whizz-kid directing. It's also a bit of a nostalgia piece for me. I saw the original production with my parents and brother when we stopped off in London on our way to Heathrow for a family holiday. Kelly Hunter, who has since become a great friend, played Peron's Mistress. She was 17 then, and so was I. We're a bit older now. I had the recording, and knew all the words. Actually, it seems I still do.

Jamie Lloyd's production is far removed from that original by Hal Prince, with its 1940s costumes and recreations of press images. Aside of the lyrics, and occasional hints of Hispanic accents ("ArHentina" passim), there's precious little sense of mid-century Latin America at all. It's a rock concert. Rachel Zegler makes her first appearance as a curtain lifts to show her standing in her black leather bra and hotpants in front of a huge illuminated sign that says "Evita". The audience roars. Subtle it is not - but as a staging of the character's funeral, you can't fault it for radical deconstruction.

And the radical deconstruction works. As the evening travels through a series of stadium-style, high-energy, crowd-pleasing choreographic showstoppers, you can't help but get caught up in the sheer stariness of the whole thing, and particularly the central performance. Rachel Zegler's singing is wonderful, and she exudes vitality at the centre of the dance numbers. It was like watching the young Madonna - which is more than a little ironic, given Madonna's lacklustre performance of a role she might have been born to play in the film version. But that's political theatre for you: if you're too close to the character, you're in no position to offer a commentary. Such was the scale of Madonna's Evita-like ego that she insisted on singing the Mistress's song herself, and requested a new, mawkishly sentimental number to garner audience sympathy as Eva nears her end ("You must love me" is unfortunately retained here - and the production loses focus as a result). What is fascinating in Rachel Zegler's performance is that, for all her magnetism, she has no fear of playing against audience sympathy, moving in sudden leaps from charismatic star to amoral manipulator. So, even as you ride the rock-concert wave of it all, you come to see ever more clearly the shocking politics behind it. It's a show about celebrity, about politics as celebrity, about stardom as self-interest, about policy as profiteering. 

Rachel Zegler sings from the balcony

The big number comes directly after the interval. It's become a cause célèbre, but not for appropriate reasons. Unless, of course, the marketing guys planned it that way...  Certainly the column inches spent on Zegler singing from the Palladium balcony to the (horror - unpaying) crowd of adoring fans in the street outside have contributed significantly to the size of that crowd: not so much unpaying audience as unpaid extras whose numbers more than suggest the people of Argentina, gathered to hear Eva Peron's speech at her husband's inauguration. They are, of coure, Zegler's fans; but in this construct, relayed by video to the (paying) theatre audience, they become Evita's fans too, and a complex metatheatrical metaphor is established. It's all the more telling because this is the only moment in the show where Eva is dressed in the expected historical costume, and those of us in the theatre get to see her remove the spangled dress and the blonde wig in the aftermath of the big number. That powerful image of Eva Peron orating from the balcony of the Casa Rosada, which later became the image of the starry musical and the hit song, is exposed as a theatrical and electonically mediated construct. And still we clap, and still we cheer.

Back in the 70s, there were two stars in the Prince production. Elaine Paige was Evita, and David Essex played opposite her as Che Guevara (they never met in real life, although Che did once write Evita a letter asking her to buy him a jeep). In those days, Che did present a form of left-wing stardom, his poster image adorning many a student wall. David Essex was perfect casting: not only for the look, but because he exuded an edgy, sexy, working-class anger. Jamie Lloyd offers no such hope: and I'm afraid he's probably right. His Che, as Andrzej Lukowski puts in in his excellent Time Out review, "assumes more of a Jiminy Cricket role": you would never know this young man with a nice voice was anything more than a slightly grumpy older brother. There is no hint of activism, never mind revolution. Charisma left the left a long time ago, and theory (of which Guevara was very aware) now insists on the collective rather than the star. Celebrity is entirely the tool of the right, and politics has become its playground. Rags to riches stories, amazing singers emerging from obscurity, these are the tools of the individualistic neoliberal narrative. 

We paid a lot to go and see a rising mega-star. The production powerfully and intelligently questioned that action. And pocketed our cash.