1. Blues for an Alabama Sky
Lyttelton, London; October
It was an outstanding year at the National for big, consequential plays. Indhu Rubasingham’s production of The Father and the Assassin swept the stage with an utterly distinctive palette and movement, while Dominic Cooke beautifully, resoundingly re-engineered The Corn Is Green. Yet it was Lynette Linton’s flowing staging of Pearl Cleage’s Harlem renaissance drama that lingered longest: gloriously capturing an entire world, melancholy but bold with hope – and expressively costumed by Frankie Bradshaw.
2. The Burnt City
One Cartridge Place, London; April (booking until 16 April 2023)
Blazing back into London, Punchdrunk staged the siege of Troy in their new permanent Woolwich home – two former munitions factories – drawing on Aeschylus, Fritz Lang and Alexander McQueen. Here was ritual dance, lofty magnificence and exquisitely drilled detail (the beer barrel marked “Hades”): the company’s unique combination of the grand and the granular.
