Carver, Arcola, London
Short stories, simply told - Carver lives on in Dalston
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Carver's pieces about authors and budding artists are rather too self-conscious. The evening does tail off disappointingly, as well. In the final story, Intimacy, Jack Klaff has little to do but gaze and then abjectly genuflect, playing a virtually mute and seemingly repentant writer who's harangued by his ex-wife (Kathryn Pogson) in a wearisome, one-way conversation.
Klaff is more mesmerising in Cathedral, playing a sonorous blind man who, for better or worse, insinuates his way into Rosemary McHale's and Bruce Alexander's souring marriage. Also, when a young husband and wife blithely visit an elderly couple whose house they once rented (in Put Yourself In My Shoes), the Christmas hospitalities rapidly turn into a truly nightmarish farce as the oldsters (Alexander and McHale again) slowly work themselves up into a poisonous fury.
Once again the Arcola, run by the pioneering Mehmet Ergen, proves itself a buzzing hive of fine work off the beaten track.
To 6 August, 020 7503 1646
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