Stephens Plays: 4: Three Kingdoms; The Trial of Ubu; Morning; Carmen Disruption

by Simon Stephens

Four plays inspired by and originating on the European stage from one of Britain's most important playwrights. Three Kingdoms was presented at Teater NO99 in Tallinn, Estonia on 17 September 2011, before opening at the Munich Kammerspiele, Germany, on 15 October 2011. ‘An inconsolable mood of dread, abandon, violence and suspicion lurks beneath the show's skin of arty insouciance, and at times the script attains a lyrical pitch of accusation against the West that quite overrides the flippancy. There's something of value here.’ Daily Telegraph ; The Trial of Ubu premiered at the Schauspielhaus Essen in a co-production with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam. ‘The play certainly gets at the banality of evil, and evokes the slow, sometimes dull, often uncertain slog of justice.’ Sunday Times . Subtitled ‘A Play For Young People’, Morning was developed in partnership between the Lyric Hammersmith, London, and the Junges Theater, Göttingen. The Financial Times described it as ‘theatrically daring and uncompromising’; Carmen Disruption , a reimagining of Bizet’s opera, premiered at the Deutsche Spielhaus in spring, 2014, before its UK premiere at the Almeida, London, in April 2015. ‘You can't help but be moved by the circumstances facing the five main characters. There's an understanding and a compassion amid the bleakness. And a fierce sense that something needs to change.’ Guardian ;

338 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 2015

Reviews

[Charlie Lee]

Three Kingdoms is a wonderful play, up there with his best stuff, such as Bluebird, Country Music, Herons. 4.5 stars. It seems more experimental than his other stuff in terms of its internal logic, while still following some of the familiar steps of the ubiquitous cop dramas on TV. The dark comedy boosts the play significantly and has Stephens regular mix of cynicism about the way things are and hope about how they could be.

The other stuff in this collection was less my speed but Stephens never really writes a bad play. Carmen Interrupted and Ubu on Trial were just not to my taste.