HAMPSTEAD THEATRE, LONDON Brenton’s ambitious but muddled new drama follows a gifted young Syrian woman who attracts the attentions of an Oxford classicist, Euripides and MI5 Edward Hall ends his 10-year tenure as Hampstead’s director with a rum piece: a new play by Howard Brenton loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and featuring Euripides as a character. Packed with quotes from the Iliad, the play has occasional Homeric “winged words” and advances some intriguingly unfashionable ideas, but lacks internal logic. Brenton’s Jude is a self-taught Syrian refugee who comes to Britain seeking to fulfil her dream of getting into Oxford. Her gift for languages, ancient Greek especially, is spotted by a Portsmouth teacher who first champions but then abandons her. Continue reading...
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