Collaboration

It's worth keeping one eye on what's coming out of Chichester these days, such is the buzz about what's happening on the stages of the Chichester Festival Theatre, and - just to prove it - here is another critically-acclaimed production to reach the bright lights of the West End. Ronald Harwood's Collaboration, playing in repertoire with his Taking Sides at the Duchess Theatre, captures the heart-rending story of the artistic partnership between German composer Richard Strauss and Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig on the opera Die schweigsame Frau during Nazi rule. Its provocative questions fuel the drama, focusing on the struggle to be apolitical under a tyrannical regime as the tensions between protecting and upholding art and the characters' personal battles and loyalties blur the boundaries. At its heart is a real friendship; Michael Pennington's "mesmerising" Strauss cannot hide his pain, as, "like a sustained note that suddenly breaks, cracks of anguish appear across his face as he learns of Zweig's fate" (The Daily Telegraph), but it also has "the forensic concentration of courtroom drama" (The Independent). Compelling stuff.