The shows must go on

THE ROAR of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd . . . oh how we’ve missed theatre. And now the curtain is going up all over the country. Theatre has the power to allow us to deny and escape the world around us – or confront it head on. Sometimes a play will offer both.

Samuel Beckett’s seminal Krapp’s Last Tape, right, is a great example. For those who love absurdist theatre, it tells of an older man who reflects on his youth via a series of old tape recordings, taking us right into the darkness of existentialist crises, the realisation that 70 years on earth has left nothing but arthritis, damp walls and even damper spirit.

So far so wonderfully miserable. But it’s not simply about reflection of lost beauty and missed opportunities. The play allows us to laugh at vanity; to realise that, in the words of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.

This theme of self-exploration is explored at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow with the Beckett-inspired Go On, in which Jane (Maureen Beattie) wonders how artificial intelligence replacement might allow her to exist in the future. Sitting in her sleek kitchen, Jane teaches ‘Jayne’ the essentials of her life, and the loves and losses that have shaped her.

Go On is the world premiere of this new play by Linda McLean. And if Covid has offered us the chance to assess personal content, how better to explore the vagaries presented by the human condition via some great songs and a terrific storyline?

Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers is back at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow. (October 5-9) It’s a nature/ nurture argument set in Liverpool, played out after children are separated at birth, wrapped around some great songs. Audience tears are virtually guaranteed at each performance.

But if we really want to stick our tongues out at the impact of the coronavirus, theatre offers the perfect satirical opportunity this coming week at Oran Mor in Glasgow’s west end. The Tale of Typhoid Mary sees an epidemic spring up of typhoid (‘a disease of the slums’) among New York’s wealthy.

We learn that a pioneering virologist traces the infection to Irish cook Mary Mallow. Mary denies the link. But the state locks her up anyway. Will Mary go down without a fight? Is she really a super-spreader, or has she spread nothing more dangerous than cheap margarine?

Perth Theatre’s Don Juan is certainly a by-product of Covid. (October 14-30). Actor Grant O’Rourke found himself contained to his living room during the run of The Importance Of Being Earnest at Perth, so he took to his laptop and came up with a new version of Molière’s society-bashing satire. He says of theatre; “It’s healing, it’s cathartic and it’s the way I try and make sense of the world. But more than anything, it’s fun.”

O’Rourke is so right. Steven McNicoll stars as the legendary lothario, a largerthan-life character.