Welcome to the Whatsonstage.com Theatre Club

The Pianist

Royal Exchange, Manchester
From: Wednesday, 17th June 2009
To: Saturday, 27 June 2009

Our Review:

Search for tickets

Use the link below to search for The Pianist tickets on your desired date.

We're sorry, it seems that we do not currently sell tickets for this show. Please go directly to the box office.

Synopsis

This thought-provoking version of a story was first made famous in an Oscar-winning film by Roman Polanski. Based upon the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, it is the harrowing story of one man's time in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi Occupation.

Our Review:

19 June 2009

Unusually for the Royal Exchange, The Pianist is not an in-house production and the theatre has not so much been dressed for the occasion. Quite the opposite, as it is stripped bare.

Deepening shadows are cast across bare floorboards by Chris Davey's stage-level floodlights to promote a growing sense of apprehension. In the centre of the stage is, of course, a piano.

The memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman have been edited, rather than adapted, into a script by performer Mikhail Rudy and director Neil Bartlett. As a result the script retains the raw feel of the life of a Polish Jew who survived the gradual destruction of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.

The play is perfectly-paced and although based upon autobiographical material, we learn little about Szpi...

Read more of the review