It is fair to say that the draw here is Cate Blanchett and not, for all his reputation as one of Germany's most respected living dramatists, Botho Strauss. That is unless semi-absurdist German drama from the Cold War era has suddenly become box-office gold.
In Martin Crimp's updated translation of Strauss's 1978 play - staged by the Sydney Theatre Company - Blanchett plays Lotte, a woman about whom we learn little beyond the fact that her egotistical husband Paul has left her.
Strauss is as interested in imagery as he is in story-telling, his narrative more a series of snapshots than an unfolding plot. It is a form well understood by director Benedict Andrews and designer Johannes Schultz, who set the action on a dark stage of seemingly infinite depth.
In truth, Lotte represents an old-fashioned idea of how a woman copes with rejection - made even more so by Crimp's updated setting.
Still, Blanchett gives a performance of such wit and vulnerability, proving she can command a stage as convincingly as she does the screen, that she makes the production a must-see. (www.barbican.org.uk)
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