...‘The Chairs’ is funny, weird and wilfully awkward, and I think a director is left with the choice of treating it like a ‘50s museum piece, or updating frantically. And whether or not you think he made the right choice, any opportunity to see [Kathryn] Hunter do her thing is always a treat.
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Kathryn Hunter’s performance is the main draw in this rare and laborious revival of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist 1952 play...this knowing, apocalyptic slapstick raises titters rather than belly laughs.
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"It's a very odd script," says Kathryn Hunter's Old Woman, voice full of wonder. It is indeed – but very funny and thought-provoking too...Within this frame, [Marcello] Magni and Hunter weave pure magic.
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This may be the perfect time to revive a play about the consolations of the imagination, and of theatre, in the aftermath of apocalypse – and one written by the godfather of the absurd...It’s still a hugely exciting revival, exciting to watch, with two spine-shiveringly good central performances.
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Nevertheless, this really is a fantastically funny, bravura night out, with a double act in Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni that reminds me of another great pairing of theatrical old hands, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, in this play’s close relation, Beckett's Waiting for Godot. They’re that good.
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