This theatrical adaptation of the trailblazing dystopian movie by Jewish director Gary Ross lacks the emotional depth of the film and book franchises
November 19, 2025 17:06
I contend that it helps to be Jewish to convey tyranny in art. Jewish experience is so brimful of oppression this unenviable, valuable knowledge is passed through the DNA of generations like a compulsory heirloom.
This is not to say that it’s a thing that only Jews can do. The books that led to the $3.4 billion Hunger Games franchise are written by Suzanne Collins who is reportedly Catholic. Yet it was Jewish producer Nina Jacobson who bought the film rights, and Jewish director Gary Ross who made the first trailblazing movie.
Set in a future country that suppresses dissent by pitting its children against each other in televised mortal combat, the film conveyed the heart-pounding tension of living in fear.
However, this highly anticipated adaptation directed by Matthew Dunster conveys no fear at all. Never have I seen so little emotional effect at the sight of a child being killed. The one area where this stage version does trump the film is in making the audience complicit in the amoral spectacle.
The show is staged in a purpose-built building whose steeply tiered banks of seating rise above the performance space like those in a colosseum.
Miriam Beuther’s design bookends the stage area with two giant digital screens on which a pre-recorded John Malkovich appears as Panem’s President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland in the movie).
Even with the slight delay that goes with the integration of pre-recorded material into live performance, Malkovich is the embodiment of sinister malevolence as he overlooks the carnage his regime feeds to us – the masses.
Although Malkovich is the only cast member who one can imagine might have made the grade in the original film, Mia Carragher in her professional stage debut does a sterling job as Katniss Everdeen, the role acted so memorably by Jennifer Lawrence.
Carragher, who this early in her career cannot be mentioned without name-checking her former England and Liverpool footballer father Jamie, embraces the athleticism of the role, climbing steep gantries and firing arrows the full length of the cavernous auditorium.
Yet Conor McPherson’s script gives little opportunity for her role to convey the inner life of a 16-year-old girl who volunteers for the near-death sentence of the so-called Games in order to save her younger sister.
This show, then, is all about concept and spectacle. There are some memorable flourishes in the way that the population of the Capitol strut like posing fashionistas.
The show is visually entertaining, but it lacks the heart to make you care about the fate of Panem’s people.
Theatre: The Hunger Games: On Stage
Troubadour Theatre
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