Overview
- The Misanthrope is playing at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton and is booking through 1 August 2026.
- Sandra Oh stars as Alice, a gender-switched, high-profile novelist, and reviewers overwhelmingly praise her fierce central performance.
- Paul Chahidi is singled out for a nuanced supporting role, but critics say the production wastes some comic talent in an unfocused middle section.
- Martin Crimp’s script keeps the original verse and layers in references to cancel culture, #MeToo, mansplaining, hacking and online trolling, a choice reviewers say produces awkward deliveries and a diffuse satirical sweep.
- Indhu Rubasingham’s direction and Robert Jones’s Baroque-inflected design win consistent praise for a striking final fever-dream, and the staging has refocused attention on Crimp’s track record of modernising classics rather than on any off-stage controversy.