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Theatre

Les Blancs at the Olivier is good-ish, but it won't be a classic

Plus: Cyrpus Avenue at the Royal Court is a pointless and partisan exercise

16 April 2016

9:00 AM

16 April 2016

9:00 AM

Les Blancs

Olivier, in rep until 2 June

Cyprus Avenue

Royal Court, until 7 May

Les Blancs had a troubled birth. In 1965 several unfinished drafts of the play were entrusted by its dying author, Lorraine Hansberry, to her ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff, who mounted a debut production in New York in 1970. Nemiroff has created a fresh version with the help of a ‘dramaturg’ (or ‘colleague’, in English) named Drew Lichtenberg who believes not only that this ramshackle script is a masterpiece but also that Hansberry belongs in the first rank of dramatists alongside Ibsen, Sophocles and Aeschylus.

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