1: Boy
You wouldn’t exactly describe Leo Butler’s play as an enjoyable watch. But it is an utterly compelling 70 minutes. Deprived teen Liam has no job, no prospects, no money, no social skills and no friends. Sacha Wares’s clever production teems with life, as he encounters authority figures, peers and passers-by, all of whom fail to either understand what he wants and needs or notice him at all. Boy conjures an entire city, making you look at the world outside the theatre through new eyes.
Almeida Theatre, N1, to 28 May
2: Right Now
Your final opportunity to catch this strange and disquieting play about Alice and Ben, a couple in crisis. Translated by Chris Campbell from an original work by French-Canadian writer Catherine-Anne Toupin, it is both surreal and creepy. Lindsey Campbell is brilliant as Alice, a woman whose sense of self and other people is collapsing to bizarre and comic effect.
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, to 7 May
3: Kings Of War
Last chance for Ivo van Hove’s mashup of Henry V, Henry VI and Richard III, which operates both as dynastic soap opera and a coolly forensic examination of power and leadership. Live action and video are intercut to superb effect and the camera alternates between probing and revealing, offering close-ups or disclosing what would otherwise go unseen. Brilliant design by Jan Versweyveld plays on the idea of theatres v theatres of war.
4: The Brink
Artistic director Paul Miller has played a canny game at the Orange Tree, keeping its traditional audience sweet with classic plays and enticing new crowds with productions such as this, a queasy comic thriller from Brad Birch. Stressed teacher Nick dreams of massacres, but is he in mental meltdown or has he stumbled across a sinister conspiracy? This is a play about twentysomethings in the age of anxiety, afraid that life and opportunity will pass them by. Jittery, truthful and very funny.
5: The Father
Florian Zeller has set French theatre alight, and it looks like he will replicate his success here. The Mother was recently seen in Bath and London, while The Truth – which has drawn comparisons with Pinter’s Betrayal – is currently a big success for the Menier in London. Completing the hat-trick is this brilliant play about a man suffering from dementia. Unsettling and affecting, Kenneth Cranham gives an extraordinary lead performance.
