Mixed Reviews for Madame de Sade

BBC News posted this article about

Critics have been largely unimpressed by Madame de Sade, the latest show in the Donmar Warehouse season in London's West End, starring Dame Judi Dench.

 

Written by Japanese playwright Yukio Mishima, the drama focuses on how the debauchery of the notorious Marquis de Sade affected his wife Renee.


Rosamund Pike plays the title character with Dench playing her outraged mother. De Sade himself does not appear.
According to the Daily Mail, the result is "desperately heavy going".


"Not even the presence of Dame Judi Dench can prevent it turning into 115 minutes of verbal and visual punishment," wrote reviewer Quentin Letts.


The Guardian's Michael Billington praised the "breathtaking" acting and staging of Michael Grandage's visually "stunning" production.
However, he continued, the play itself - set in Paris in the decade preceding the French Revolution - "is an example of the Higher Tosh".


Read full article here. Also, read another one here @ guardian.co.uk.