London.
DEATH OF A HUNTER
by Rolf Hochhuth.
Adapted by Peter Thiers & translated by Peter Sutton.

4****
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW19 9ED to 17 April 2018.
Sun & Mon 7,30pm Mat Tues 2pm.
Runs 1 hr No interval.

TICKETS: 0844 847 1652.
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

A stag at bay

Ernest Hemingway is in his study in Ketchum, Idaho. It is early morning on 2 July, 1961. He cannot sleep, is upset, incoherent, and ranting against the world, convinced the room is bugged, talks about his sleeping wife and his failure to write. Gradually he becomes coherent, responds to things he has on the tape recorder on his desk and holds a bizarre conversation with himself about death and killing. Edmund Dehn gives a powerful performance as a man at the end of his tether – the end, of course, is inevitable but still comes as shocking and is brilliantly staged. Hochhuth’s play is beautifully contrived and Anthony Shrubsall has kept what could have been a static affair moving briskly as Hemingway prowls the room like some animal pursued. The stories of the buck he killed messily, the antelope he wounded and left to the hyenas and the commandant of Paris who, having thought Hitler killed in an assassination plot, arrested the SS only to find it was not true and then try to kill himself are perfectly to the point.

Designer Holly Maples has, by the way, worked wonders with the set using, as is the way at the Finborough, the basic set used by the other play of the week.

Ernest Hemingway: Edmund Dehn.

Director: Anthony Shrubsall.
Designer: Holly Maples.
Lighting Designer: Zak Macro.

2018-04-03 10:29:12