Turandot, Puccini, "Nessun dorma": such proceeds the customary chain of association. Many will, however, sleep through chunks of this arid take on low deeds in high China, as Bertolt Brecht’s final, uncompleted work can be grindingly hard-going.
Fifteen scenes in Brecht’s "epic theatre" style see a baggy narrative about a crisis in China’s cotton trade. A surplus harvest means the emperor will receive diminished profits, hence a plan to hide millions of bales and get his court of sophist-like intellectuals to explain it away.
Sometimes satire, sometimes farce, often a chore, the piece rambles off on typically Brechtian tangents, before bewilderingly abandoning its original set-up almost entirely for an Arturo Ui-like rerun of gun-toting Chicago gangsters. Brecht’s prime target is rampant capitalism but there are also swipes at absolute rulers, with echoes of Stalin and Mao. Translator Edward Kemp and director Anthony Clark sensibly sharpen these, leaving one character triumphantly brandishing a little red book. Yet this is an evening for Brecht completists only.
Turandot until 4 Oct (020 7722 9301, www.hampsteadtheatre.com).
Turandot
Hampstead Theatre
Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, NW3 3EU
