More theatre reviews and previews

Carmen Disruption, Almeida Theatre, London

The British premiere of Simon Stephens' play which draws loosely on the Carmen story. An opera star finds herself wandering around the European city where she is performing and becomes entangled in the life on the streets. The people she meets bear a fleeting resemblance to the characters in the opera, as Stephens explores the possibility of finding love in modern urban life. Michael Longhurst directs this intriguing, elliptical piece of music theatre. Sarah Hemming

almeida.co.uk, 020 7359 4404, to May 23

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Gypsy, Savoy Theatre, London

Imelda Staunton stars in the latest hit show to transfer from Chichester Festival Theatre into the West End. Jonathan Kent directs Sondheim's musical based on Gypsy Rose Lee, which tells the story of Momma Rose and her two daughters trying to survive in show-business as the arrival of burlesque begins to displace the vaudeville at which they have excelled. SH

gypsythemusical.co.uk, 0844 871 7674, to July 18

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King John, Temple Church, London

A rare opportunity to see Shakespeare's caustic drama about the sheer nastiness of medieval power struggles, performed in a wonderfully atmospheric setting. King John, brother of the late Richard the Lionheart, is determined to keep the throne despite the stronger claims of the young Prince Arthur. This new co-production between Shakespeare's Globe and Northampton's Royal & Derngate is directed by James Dacre, stars Jo Stone-Fewings as the ruthless King and is staged by candlelight in this 800-year-old church, before travelling to Northampton and Salisbury Cathedral. The staging then plays the Globe in June. SH

shakespearesglobe.com, 020 7401 9919, to April 19

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Measure for Measure, Silk Street Theatre, London

Cheek by Jowl's Russian ensemble returns to the Barbican with a staging of Shakespeare's moral drama about tolerance and absolutism. A ruler leaves his deputy in charge, but the bureaucrat proves both an authoritarian and a hypocrite. Declan Donnellan's production is set in contemporary Russia, bringing a new twist to this sharp analysis of what constitutes good leadership. Performed in Russian with English surtitles. SH

barbican.org.uk, 020 7638 8891, April 15-25

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Death of a Salesman, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

This revival to commemorate the centenary of Arthur Miller's birth reunites a number of successful RSC teams: Antony Sher and Alex Hassell were surrogate father and son as Falstaff and Hal in the Henry IV plays last year, directed by Gregory Doran, who also directed Sher and Harriet Walter as the Macbeths back in 1999. Here these actors form three-quarters of the Loman family in the great modern tragedy. A gorgeously fluid staging wafts us between Willy Loman's disintegrating present and the memories in which he increasingly lives, and this clutch of terrific central performances make it the tragedy not simply of an ordinary man but equally of his wife and son. Ian Shuttleworth

rsc.org.uk, 0844 800 1110, to May 2

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Oppenheimer, Vaudeville Theatre, London

An impressive new play from Tom Morton-Smith, tracing the role of theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer in the creation of the atomic bomb and, with it, the path by which the human race arrived at the ability to annihilate itself. Morton-Smith responds to this intriguing and tragic story with an intelligent and ultimately desolate drama, delivered, aptly, in Angus Jackson's ensemble production for the RSC with fizzing energy. We watch as Oppenheimer and his colleagues progress from excitedly working out the implications of nuclear fission to building the bombs that will drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the centre is a superb performance from John Heffernan as Oppenheimer. SH

rsc.org.uk, 0844 800 1110, to May 23 . . .

The Nether, Duke of York's, London

Last chance to see Jennifer Haley's hit, which proposes a near-future in which most transactions are conducted in an online world called The Nether. The focus of the drama is Papa, a man who has designed and runs a virtual-reality site where sexual and violent abuse of children is not only permitted but more or less obligatory. The achievement of Haley, director Jeremy Herrin and actor Stanley Townsend, is to make such a figure and such a situation understandable. Haley's play at first challenges us to think the unthinkable, then almost seduces us into it. Uncomfortable viewing. IS

thenethertheplay.co.uk, 020 7565 5000, to April 25

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