Girl with a Pearl Earring
Theatre Royal Haymarket
Waste
Almeida
Creditors
Donmar
I don’t know much about art but I know what I dislike. Art history. It forces one to view paintings and sculpture through the medium of literature. Every word spoken in appreciation of art is a step away from true art appreciation, which is inevitably unconscious, illiterate, oblivious to itself. The more you know, the less you feel. Those who enjoy art understand these limitations and long for fresh ways to approach their pursuit. Soap opera provides a surprisingly satisfying point of entry and here’s the latest daub-drama, Girl with a Pearl Earring, a fictional narrative about Vermeer’s enigmatic portrait of sexy innocence.
The critics have gleefully emptied several bucketloads of manure over this production. Justly so. The characterisation is facile, the narrative is Jackanoryish, the pace turtle-slow and the script cliché-rich.
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