This new play by Nick Payne stars Zoe Wanamaker,Nina Sosanya and Barbara Flynn and explores a world in which the brain is no longer a mystery to us and what the consequences of understanding it are. But what are critics saying about the new production at the Donmar Warehouse?
The Guardian:**** Michael Billington wrote that: “Payne’s real achievement is to have put flesh on scientific concepts and to have explored the moral dilemmas that lie at the heart of drama.”
WhatsOnStage: **** Sarah Crompton found: “It is admirably poised, and unsentimental and Josie Rourke’s delicate, understated direction is of a parcel with the restraint of the piece.”
The Telegraph: *** Dominic Cavendish was slightly less enthusiastic finding: “It’s as if Payne has alighted on mind-blowing material fit for a major play for today and then contented himself with helping us pass the time before supper.”
Time Out: ****Andrzej Lukowski said: “It’s a beautiful production of a provocative play.”
The Financial Times: **** Ian Shuttleworth commented that: “Payne has carved a niche for himself in dramatic examinations of that knot where mind, brain and identity meet and tangle.”
Evening Standard: *** Henry Hitchings summed it up by saying: “While the subject matter is intriguing, the play feels a touch too brittle and the characterisation is undernourished.”
The Upcoming : *** Mersa Auda wrote: “It’s rather a quiet storm slowly brewing within and around the characters, without ever climaxing into a solution or a higher understanding. Nevertheless, Elegy poses intelligent questions and rewards the audience with great performances.”
British Theatre Guide: “after seeing it some viewers might change their own lives, attitudes and beliefs as a direct result of a mere hour or so of imaginative theorising by a playwright on top form.”
The Daily Mail:** Quentin Letts was less impressed finding: “Perhaps memory is too personal a thing to turn easily into drama.”
There Ought to be Clowns: “Superlatively acted and sensitively directed, Payne could yet afford to go further.”
Elegy is on at the Donmar Warehouse until the 18th June.
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