Billie Piper stars as Yerma, a woman who is desperate for a child in Simon Stone’s production. It opened at the Young Vic Theatre last night (4th August) – so what have critics made of it? 

The Guardian: *** Michael Billington found: “The piece is well performed not only by Piper but by Brendan Cowell as her uneasy partner, Maureen Beattie as her withdrawn mother, and John MacMillan as an ex-lover who declines to become a surrogate father. But, in uprooting Lorca’s fable from its context, Stone simply gives us a display of unrelieved psychological angst.”

Broadway World: ****Marianka Swain wrote: “the night belongs to Piper, whose grief seems wrenched from the soul.”

Evening Standard: ***** Henry Hitchings said: “it’s the quality of the performances that makes this a riveting hundred minutes, and Billie Piper is on raw, ferocious, spellbinding form.”

WhatsOnStage: **** Sarah Crompton summed it up saying: “Piper’s access to feeling is so immediate and the adaptation so urgent.”

The Independent: ***** Paul Taylor called it: “A triumphant vindication of the Young Vic’s policy of collaborating on the classics with visionary directors from abroad.”

The Times: ***** “an extraordinary theatrical triumph.”

The Upcoming:***** “The play is all the more affecting due to Stone’s unwillingness to paint the narrative in any colour but grey.”

Time Out: **** “a fiercely modern story that’s electrified by Billie Piper’s central role.”

Live Theatre UK: *** “Lorca’s Yerma, a richly drawn and timeless tragedy, deserves a better adaptation and more sensitive, illuminating direction than that Stone here provides.”

Yerma will play at the Young Vic Theatre until the 24th September. For more information and to book tickets visit: http://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/yerma