Best Things I've Seen on Stage in London

The Hunt is a Scandi-noir drama (based on the movie of the same name) that is compelling and disturbing.  A decent man is accused of an indecent act, suspicion abounds as masculine camaraderie turns into toxic masculinity.  I had to close my eyes at the final scene, and it stayed with me for days afterward.

This ballet makes the Black Swan of Swan Lake look like Mary Poppins.  Mayerling is based on the true story of Austria's Crown Prince Rupert, who died with his teenaged mistress in a mysterious murder-suicide in the royal hunting lodge at Mayerling.  The ballet shows his obsession with death (one shared by his mistress), his abusive treatment of women, drug use... all the stuff normally NOT shown in classical ballet.

Choreographer Kenneth Macmillan makes the stars of the performance the male dancers, not the ballerinas.  Rupert and his two friends have a pas de trois that is amazingly graceful and masculine.  There are traditional male/female pas de deux, although you don't normally see one between mother and son (and yes, it's creepy).  And the dances are far more explicit than traditional, especially in the bedroom dance.

McKellen has said this will be his last great stage role, and if that's true (although I hope not), this is a high note in a career of high notes.   Two scenes, both small but telling moments, stood out for me... after the battle, the wounded Lear wakes up in the hospital and you can see awareness returning to him as he looks around to figure out where he is and who is with him.  The other is when he and his now-reconciled daughter Cordelia are captured, he comforts her by envisioning them together again, even if it's in prison.  The joy on his face at this thought makes her subsequent death all the more tragic.

Carmen sings the Habanera as she strips out of a gorilla costume.  No, I don't know why... and by the end of the opera, I didn't particularly care.