Almeida Theatre

At the risk of stating the horribly obvious, recent events in the Middle East have given a grim new topicality to the Almeida’s adaptation of Babak Anvari’s 2016 horror film about a mother and daughter menaced by supernatural forces in wartorn 1980s Tehran. Then again, Nadia Latif’s production aspires to timelessness. While it tells an Iranian story with a cast of Iranian origin, the fact Carmen Nasr’s script is in English obviously puts a different spin on things than the Persian-language film. As does Ben Stones’ living room set, a tasteful middle class home that transcends obvious place, and even time: bar the tiny old style telly, there’s no tell that this is the ’80s.  And its timelessness gives it power, a dark universal parable about living under two shadows: war, and a totalitarian state. Leila Farzad’s Shideh is a frustrated wife, whose dream of becoming a doctor has foundered due to her blacklisting for leftwing activities during the Iranian Revolution. Now she stews at home with her daughter Dorsa, as enthusiastic about being a housewife as a tiger is about being caged.  And then there’s the war. Tehran is being bombed, and there’s talk of missiles soon too. But could there be something worse? Allegedly mute neighbourhood boy Mehdi has apparently whispered to Dorsa that vengeful djinn are abroad. When their building is hit by a missile, it seems like something has come in with it.  The djinn are a very good metaphor for the horror that intrudes on civilian life...

Sarah Kane’s harrowing masterpiece about love and torture was last revived a decade ago, when Katy Mitchell’s production caused audience members to faint. Now Almeida deputy Rebecca Frecknall waves goodbye to the theatre that made her name with a revival, and a rare deviation for her from the classic American plays she tends to direct. The plot isn”t exactly easy to describe, but it follows a group of inmates in a hospital-like inistitution presided over by the monstrous Tinker, who tortures them, experiments on them, and commits various other unspeakable acts both physical and psychological. Leo Bill, Pearl Chanda, Luke Cinque-White, Lizzy Connolly, Jack Riddiford, Parth Thakerar and Stuart Thompson star. Genuinely about as extreme as art gets, it’s not for the faint of heart.