Letters From Max ★★★★ Hampstead Theatre | May 23 - Jun 28, 2025


In 2012, Sarah Ruhl met Max Ritvo. He was a senior in her playwriting class, and she immediately recognised his talent for writing. Over the following years, they began a correspondence which covered many topics from poetry to Max's ongoing battle with cancer. Letters From Max was developed from that ongoing dialogue and movingly chronicles their shared love of life and literature. It is a deeply affecting experience that is beautifully captured in the performances of Sirine Saba as the putative mentor, Sarah, and Eric Sirakian, as the irrepressible pupil, Max. These roles are far from fixed, however, and as Sarah opines in the play, she learns as much from Max as he does from her as they both experience his coming to grips with his mortality. It is fascinating to watch these two intelligent and articulate individuals struggle with questions of art and death, and both Saba and Sirakian put in beautifully subtle and cerebral performances. If there is any fault to find in this lovely piece of writing, it is that it straddles the line between poetry and play in a way that can sometimes seem uneasy. The joy of the former is that it can be re-read and re-considered, pondered and pored over, at one's leisure, whereas the latter exists only in the moment. There is so much to unpack here and too frequently it is lost as the interchanges move on. However, it definitely makes for good reason to buy the play text so one can consider Max and Sarah's meditations at leisure. Blanche McIntyre's direction nicely makes use of the space available, ensuring the audience's engagement is not lost even in some of the denser discussions, while Dick Bird's simple set of a hanging glass partition does a brilliant job of conjuring so many relevant metaphors as it mirrors the discussion onto the audience. We couldn't help thinking of St Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, "For now we see through a glass, darkly...." That glass pane becomes a barrier and a window that is wonderfully evocative. Letters From Max is intense and intelligent theatre that is both touching and challenging.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Helen Murray

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: Eton Ave, London NW3 3EU, UK

Most Popular

A Month in the Country ★★★★★ Donmar Warehouse | Aug 22 - Oct 3, 2026

Image
Brian Friel’s version of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country is more sexually and psychologically explicit than the original, with the character of Natalya firmly at its centre. Her boredom, sense of entitlement and neediness become the driving forces of a drama in which desire, jealousy and emotional frustration steadily destabilise a superficially tranquil household. Friel makes the play leaner, livelier and considerably funnier than the original. Turgenev regarded his plays as works to be read rather than performed, and Friel cuts the wordiness while bringing the characters’ suppressed feelings sharply to the surface. However, he retains Turgenev’s rich imagery. The curtain rises on a card game in which the comic tutor Schaaf declares that hearts are trump, neatly prefiguring the romantic entanglements to come. Aleksey’s kite, a symbol of youthful freedom and carefree abandon, vividly suggests why Natalya is increasingly attracted to the young tutor. Indeed, his exuberance stands in ...
Full Details »

Table 17 ★★★ Kiln Theatre | Sep 17 - Oct 24, 2026

Image
Table 17 is a charming little romcom about Jada and Dallas, who meet again after a failed engagement. What will Jada wear for the occasion? Is it a date or not a date? Will they get back together, or have they moved on? The humour is touching and will ring true with anyone who has ever experienced a failed relationship, although the story itself has a somewhat predictable feel. Martha Wallace as Jada and Jamel Westman as Dallas create thoroughly convincing and completely likeable characters. His faux cool and her needy strength generate plenty of laughter, but it is Michael Rishaw who almost steals the show in his turns as the camp, wisecracking maître d’, River, and Jada’s sport-obsessed co-worker and suitor, Eric. His transformations produce amazingly accurate and instantly recognisable types. He also serves as the narrator of this slight story, delivering its moral: “Maybe the lesson isn’t in the outcome, but in the effort. We all deserve such effort.” It is an understated plea for...
Full Details »

Golden Boy ★★★★ Almeida Theatre | Sep 8 - Oct 31, 2026

Image
Written in 1937, Golden Boy is probably Clifford Odets’ most famous work. The story of a young man torn between becoming a violinist or a boxer is a critique of the corrupting influence of the materialism that underpins the American Dream. The theme echoes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , right down to the famous scene in which Gatsby contemplates his beautiful shirts. Young Joe Bonaparte is similarly seduced by a world that values appearances over substance when the gangster Eddie Fuseli showers him with silk shirts and other trappings of success. In forsaking his calling as a musician for the fame and money of boxing, Joe ultimately sacrifices not only his family ties but also his sense of self. The performances are uniformly strong. Josh O’Connor gives Joe an intense, increasingly volatile presence, convincingly charting his transformation from a gifted young musician into a man consumed by ambition and violence. Hayley Squires is equally compelling as the hard-nosed Lorna ...
Full Details »

Jane Eyre A Musical ★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Elephant | Aug 28 - Oct 24, 2026

Image
Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel is about two flawed individuals whose pride and wayward spirits must be curbed before they can learn to rely on God’s love and on each other. At the story's heart is the need to learn Christian humility and to submit the self to a higher moral purpose. It is a sentiment unlikely to resonate with a contemporary secular audience, which may explain why the novel is more often remembered or presented as a tempestuous love story between two strong-willed characters. This latest musical version does grapple with Brontë’s religious themes, notably through its presentation of Helen Burns as Jane’s role model and the recurring emphasis on forgiveness in her signature song. The reconciliation between Jane and her childhood tormentor, Mrs Reed, similarly brings Brontë’s moral concerns to the fore, as do songs such as “My Maker” and “Children of God”. Yet these elements sit somewhat uneasily alongside the bodice-ripper of a romance that audiences are more likely t...
Full Details »

Kimberly Akimbo ★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Aug 28 - Nov 7, 2026

Image
Kimberly Levaco is a young American girl with a medical condition that causes her to age at four times the normal rate. Although still at high school, she appears to be in her sixties. Added to this, her home life is totally dysfunctional. Her father is an alcoholic, her mother is a narcissist, and her aunt, Debra, is a criminal fleeing after an assault which resulted in a man's death. With her condition, which might be described as the reverse of Benjamin Button’s, Kimberly appears to be the only sensible and morally grounded adult in this household of ne’er-do-wells. However, when Debra turns up on the family’s doorstep once again, she brings with her yet another get-rich-quick fraud scheme and threatens to disrupt the normality Kimberly is desperately trying to create. Aunt Debra presents her living-for-the-moment, everyone-out-for-themselves philosophy in the song “Better”. It is a siren call to take risks, break rules and act on impulse, no matter who gets hurt. Surprisingly, ...
Full Details »

Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists ★★★★★ National Theatre | September 19 - 26, 2026

Image
In Leipzig in 1930, Bertolt Brecht’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny was disrupted by Nazi supporters protesting against what they regarded as politically and morally offensive material. Unsurprisingly, Brecht is frequently referenced in Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists and, like Brecht’s work, Tiago Rodrigues’ drama proves to be both intelligent and incendiary. The play’s central premise is that a Portuguese family has created a rite of passage in memory of a woman who was murdered by Fascists. On turning 26, members of the family are expected to kill a selected fascist. The family members all take the name Catarina in memory of the murdered woman, and now it is the turn of one of the great-granddaughters of the family matriarch to carry out the ritual killing. When she hesitates to follow the family tradition, what ensues is a multi-layered exploration of resistance to authoritarianism and the morality of killing in the name of political resistance. The dense ...
Full Details »

Thelma and Louise ★★★ Young Vic | Sep 3 - Oct 24, 2026

Image
The 1991 film Thelma & Louise received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress nominations for both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. The film took the usually male-dominated buddy-movie and road-movie genres and placed two women at its centre, while also raising provocative questions about cultural misogyny, victimhood and the struggle for personal freedom. The characters themselves were not especially complex, but their situation and search for authenticity resonated with audiences. The question, then, is whether a musical version of such a successful film can really add anything to the original. Unfortunately, although the performances are strong, the musical elements and staging do little to deepen the story. The thumping country score often overwhelms the drama, while the wordy narrative lyrics tend to explain rather than illuminate the action. The single set, centred on a barroom, also struggles to convey the expansive ...
Full Details »

Darkling ★★★★ Bush Theatre | Sep 5 - Oct 24, 2026

Image
On 3 December 1984, a leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released a highly toxic cloud over the surrounding area. Thousands of people died within days, while many more suffered serious injuries and long-term health problems. The disaster is regarded as one of the world’s worst industrial catastrophes, with estimates of the eventual death toll reaching into the tens of thousands. The scale of the tragedy is almost impossible to comprehend, but in Darkling , Linnea Berthelsen creates an individual who becomes emblematic of those whose lives were devastated by the catastrophe. The overwhelming scale of the event is brought down to a human level, allowing the audience to grasp its impact through the story of one poor young girl and her family whose lives are shattered. The monologue evokes the everyday life of a girl growing up in the slums of Bhopal, capturing its mixture of joy and hardship. There is abuse and racism, but also a strong ...
Full Details »

The Story ★★★ National Theatre | Aug 27 - Oct 24, 2026

Image
When a young white American couple become lost in a black neighbourhood while searching for a restaurant, they are attacked by a stranger. However, what initially appears to be a fairly straightforward crime drama takes on another dimension when the assault is investigated by an ambitious young black female reporter who is increasingly at odds with her colleagues. From questions about black identity and assimilation into white society to the role and responsibilities of a free press, The Story tackles a wide range of issues, all woven into a crime plot with so many twists and turns that it can become difficult to follow. Add to this some complex characters whose backstories could each have provided sufficient material for a play in its own right, and two hours on stage simply does not provide enough time for author Tracey Scott Wilson to develop all the plot strands, themes and characters she wants to explore. Nor does Director Clint Dyer's staging make it any easier for the audie...
Full Details »

Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It ★★★★ Soho Theatre | September 7 - 26, 2026

Image
Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a legendary large, hairy, human-like creature said to inhabit remote forests, particularly in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Typically described as two to three metres tall, with a powerful build, long arms and exceptionally large feet, this phenomenon has become a staple of American folklore. In this latest offering from the team of Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland, the beast is used by two teenage girls to create hysteria in their small town. The narrative recalls Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour , both of which examine the corrosive consequences of rumour, suspicion and collective hysteria with considerably greater dramatic and psychological depth. What makes this show stand out, however, is not its commentary on crowd panic and mass manipulation, subjects that feel particularly pertinent in the current political climate and the digital age, but the sheer inventiveness of its performances. Following their recent su...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings