About Say It with Flowers

Best-kept secret of the week: American modernist Gertrude Stein wrote dozens of short plays during her career. Three of them are now being staged at the Hampstead studio in a dazzling promenade production by Katie Mitchell, with help from Caryl Churchill. It’s a short but highly charged event involving surreal and bizarre conversations which seem to make perfect sense and yet combine to make a powerful assault on naturalism and the well-made play. If modernism is a subterranean lake which undermines the foundations of middle-class certainties, then Stein is one of the strongest contributory streams. And watching Say It with Flowers you can see her influence on Churchill, Crimp and Kane… Warmly recommended.

© Aleks Sierz

Caryl Churchill Gertrude Stein Hampstead Theatre Katie Mitchell Martin Crimp modernism Sarah Kane Say It with Flowers