Burnt by the Sun

Oh the National Theatre does some pretty good stuff, and Burnt by the Sun has lived up to it. It's got a beautiful revolving set of a house, and it's based on an old Russian film. Again it's like, dude, can we write some plays that aren't based on movies? But it's another movie I haven't seen and thus have no basis for comparison, and so it seemed to work quite well as a play.

The first act is a little slow. It's exposition, you meet the characters, and you're like, hmm, what's going on? The second act it starts to get interesting, but it's really the last 20 minutes of the play that are the most impressive. It's a pretty interesting twist, and a rather gripping conclusion. But it kind of all comes out at the end, it still leaves you questioning it a little bit, and leaves you with a good impression of the play. Not all that much happens in the beginning, but the end of the play really makes you walk away thinking it's pretty durn cool and you forget about any overlong exposition. Worth checking out.