Brecht dictated that his plays be staged with no frills. But any director given the run of the Olivier can be forgiven for wanting to actually use the facilities on offer. It isn’t yielding to temptation, it’s making the most of a rare opportunity.

Like a glass-panelled clock, Deborah Warner’s Mother Courage and Her Children doesn’t just choose not to conceal its inner workings, it displays them, inviting the audience to marvel at the way the pieces fit together. During one musical number Courage (Fiona Shaw) drags an ASM, already quite visible at the edge of one wing, fully onto the stage, where she dances briefly with the announcer (who also dances little jigs in the scene changes), and during the interval the second act’s placards fly in and out, in and out, as if the winches are being tested.

Not trusting the audience to be satisfied with the real backstage goings-on of a National Theatre production, Warner treats us to a self-conscious, theatricalised version of them. What we see is more bustling and disorganised than backstage in any theatre I’ve worked in; a theatre workers’ self-portrait that magnifies every insignificant pimple.

Revealing the production’s nuts and bolts works as Brecht intended, removing the emotional smokescreen that prevents critical engagement with the play; but theatricalising and calling attention to the backstage business just replaces the smokescreen with blinkers, creating a parallel drama that competes with the more important one centre stage.

The miners are also the masters of ceremony for the evening. There’s Jose, who (repeatedly) dies a day before his wedding. His bride to be, Carmen, forever waiting for her future husband to come out up from below ground. Antonio, who tries to conceal his love for his miner friend. And Sasha, the mysterious Eastern European night dancer who entertains the workers.

Weaving beauty and terror through oddball storytelling, the structure of this surprise-packed cabaret is punctuated by a range of brilliant pyrotechnics that shape the atmosphere and light up the night. Through rings of fire and bursting flares, intriguing religious images appear such as a priest walking with a burning bible; the images intensify the relationship the miners have with their destinies.

There’s a constant tension between tragedy and comedy as riot, grief and struggle turn into humorous celebration; giving birth will never be the same after seeing the miners scavenge for the baby. Each character lives its own tragedy that turns into spectacle, but there’s no time to linger, for at any moment, any time, anything can happen – and the performers are never afraid of their audience. The cabaret bursts into the square as wheeled structures of fire are pushed right into the pit of confused audience members, fire emerges from unexpected places and giant balls mark the beginning of a surreal bingo game.

With infectious energy, Markeline pay a unique tribute to the miners of the Basque Country bringing old stories back to life and adventure to the National Theatre’s Square 2. Carbón Club is bold, dark and surprising. It’s experiential theatre at its best.

Using Ted Hughes’ translation that purges Racine’s text of its poetic exuberance, Hytner re-presents the play without visual pomp. Bob Crowley’s stunning, minimalist set, including Troezen’s indoor, cave-like court on one side and a panorama of blue sky on the other, fits Hytner’s approach. After all, for Hytner’s production, the set serves as an abstract space where desires are conscripted and made to interact with one another.

Incestuous desire is, obviously, not Hytner’s focus. It is those suffering from it that matter. Phèdre’s infatuation for stepson Hippolytus and Hippolytus’s love for African-princess-turned-political-criminal Aricia are equally unlawful and not declared until Theseus’s reported demise stirs up the question of succession. ‘Love’ becomes a tool to fabricate political alliances.

In Phèdre the backlash of these untimely, politico-erotic proclamations is severe, leading to fatal jealousy and gory deaths. Helen Mirren’s Phèdre is not just a femme fatale, but disturbed and vulnerable, Mirren revives Phèdre with psychological complexity and deadly anguish—as if there were a time bomb ticking inside her frail body waiting to explode. She approaches Dominic Cooper’s Hippolytus with a seemingly political intention refraining herself from touching him. Soon after, to Phèdre, it seems Cooper’s godlike presence becomes the embodiment of unimaginable carnal sins, for which she falls victim. Phèdre’s outburst of incestuous fantasies is, thus, inevitable and ends with her lavishing kisses on Hippolytus’s neck, a sexually perverse ordeal that turns the willful and dignified prince into stone. In absence of his stepmother, Hippolytus hysterically rubs off Phèdre’s kisses with water. Though subtle, this scene of sexual animosity is brilliantly delivered.

Hytner’s production also benefits much from the powerful supporting cast of Margaret Tyzack and John Shrapnel . Tyzack’s forceful and composed Oenone is a brilliant theatrical foil to a tumultuous Phèdre. Her malice is coupled with mother-like attachment to Phèdre as she controls and re-channels the queen’s perverse desire for political gain. If Tyzack is the star in the opening scenes, Shrapnel is the one to drive the momentum in this domestic tragedy. His blood-soaked Théramène delivers unto superstitious, short-tempered Theseus (Stanley Townsend) the precise description of Hippolytus’s cursed death in a calm, soothing tone that unexpectedly breaks into a soul-wrenching ‘scream’ and ‘roar.’ The nightmarish vision is complete: Mirren reappears pale as a ghost ostracizing herself by confessing incest as Aricia slowly drags Hippolytus’s mutilated corpse in a sack tainting the stage ruby red.

The only flaw in Hytner’s Phèdre, it seems, is the missing chemistry between Cooper’s Hippolytus and Ruth Negga’s Aricia. In the end, Mirren’s soulful performance touches our hearts—not the unconsummated love of the young couple. Phèdre’s passion, to us, is more universal than mere incest, and we find ourselves sympathising with the corpse left un-mourned on stage.

Szkotak’s starting point, it seems, is the power struggle within a decaying kingdom. Political instability breeds fear as Duncan gnaws on his throne and shoots all the messengers who bring bad news, only to be relieved by the sight of a naked traitor in a cage. There is no report of Macbeth’s prowess. It soon becomes clear that the supernatural is the ultimate agent of change. The witches in the guise of nuns and with extended wooden legs glide into the performance space lighting the torches and preparing a welcoming ritual for Macbeth and Banquo. The witches’ prophesies are not only re-enacted as grotesque fantasies; they hover between the real and the un-real. For instance, there’s a scene in which kings line up and tower over Banquo, followed by a boy rolling a king’s crown on the ground. The images merge when the boy later appears as Banquo’s son.

Recurrent images, such as the bullet crown, the boy, the guns, the logs, and the extended wooden legs, become symbolic of Macbeth’s mental state of captivity. The themes of fatalism, entrapment, claustrophobic violence and psychological trauma, are very well played out especially toward the end. Seeking prophesies from the witches, Macbeth is cornered and crushed by a gigantic steel wheel filled with severed heads. Soon after, encroached and overpowered by ‘Birnam Wood’, Macbeth is startled back into the blazing castle where he is burnt to ashes on his throne.

Szkotak’s tactics, made possible by the intimate ambiance of Square2, the National Theatre’s temporary outdoor venue on the Southbank, are to shock and petrify his audience by graphic violence accentuated by sound and manipulation of light. Be it Banquo being hammered to death by burning torches or Lady Macbeth hanging herself, the excruciating horror is within the audience’s reach, as if one could jump in and put an end to it. With Shakespeare’s text replaced by non-verbal, raw and gory action, the adaptation stops one from sympathising with the hero. Szkotak’s Macbeth is no longer a tragedy but a story of an ambitious murderer who is met with a deserving end.

Apparently, the play’s usual flaw is Bertram, the male romantic lead. When the King of France forcibly weds him to Helena, in return for her curing him of a fistula, Bertram’s reaction is one of extreme distaste. He proceeds to abhor his wife for the rest of the play, joining the army to avoid her and promising to consummate his vows only if she fulfils certain nigh-impossible conditions. Then, when she duly fulfils those conditions, he turns on a sixpence in the interests of a happy ending.

Here, Bertram (George Rainsford) is a snooty child of privilege whose rejection of Helena is a reactionary response to their class difference, and his sudden turnaround is the logical result of his confidant Parolles’ exposure as a coward and fraudster, which shows Bertram that his judgement of character isn’t as sound as he thinks it is. It’s then perfectly natural for him, upon his reunion with the wife he thought dead of heartbreak, to be grateful for a second chance with a woman whose praises are sung by every other character, but whom he foolishly dismissed without a second look.

More importantly, Bertram’s change of heart is a victory for Helena, who takes the traditionally male role of dogged suitor and stubbornly refuses to take “no” for an answer. Michelle Terry, who deftly handled multiple roles in season opener England People Very Nice, here deftly embodies Helena’s strongest aspects – her determination and her good-humoured mischievous streak. Perhaps fittingly, her performance is weakest when showing Helena’s weakness; the monologues mourning her unrequited love are drastically overplayed.

The only ‘problem’ aspect remaining is what Terry’s independent Helena sees in Rainsford’s spoiled Bertram in the first place.

None of which is to say that this is a flawless production. The stylised silent vignettes Elliott uses to cover scene changes seem pasted in, at odds with the dark gravity of Rae Smith’s imposing, tumbledown set; and Helena’s ‘resurrection’ is greeted with saccharine streams of golden light and a rain of sparkly rose petals. All that’s missing is a choir of angels.

Perhaps under other circumstances having ’solved’ All’s Well would be enough of an achievement, but this is the National we’re talking about; it’s perfectly justifiable to demand more.

The play, written in the 70s and set in the 40s, hasn’t been staged in Britain for nearly 20 years, and never before in London. This could be something to do with its message no longer being exactly box-fresh.

When the colonial District Officer, a whited-up Lucian Msamati, hears that the King of Oyo is to be buried and his Elesin (Horseman) is expected to accompany him via ritual suicide, he decrees that This Will Not Do and – through a well-meaning but heavy-handed mission of mercy – risks fundamentally unbalancing the Yoruba way of life. While regularly staging our country’s dirty colonial history is a necessary reminder that the stories of those oppressed need no longer stay buried, the idea that colonialism was wrong is no longer revelatory.

Fortunately, an examination of pig-headed white ignorance is not all the play has going for it. The Elesin, a rogueish and commanding Nonso Anozie, has his own doubts about his assigned path.

The Yoruba require the veneration of their descendants to validate their afterlife, but the Elesin’s son has been sent away to England by the District Officer to study medicine. In life, his (hereditary) position affords him the best of everything; in death he faces the ignominy of the childless, but to live on after his king’s burial is to sit with arms folded as his world careens towards a cliff-edge.

His veiled appeals for guidance, in dialogue with his Praise Singer (Giles Terera, whose clowning steals his every scene) and Iyaloja, matriarch of the market (played authoritatively by Claire Benedict), share a ritual quality with the majority of Director Rufus Norris’ ensemble production. Every point in the debate is laden with allegory and folklore, every utterance accompanied by deliberate gestures that confer a wise and premeditated significance. Ensemble movement, chants and drumming imbue the production by turns with carnival exuberance and funereal solemnity.

Whether within or despite its context in the National’s programme – whether or not staging it is Hytner’s insurance policy against Richard Bean’s crowd-baiting – Death and the King’s Horseman remains an intrinsically poetic and thematically multifaceted work. Whatever the circumstances that brought it to the Olivier, it’s very welcome there.

Stovepipe aims to pick us up off the sidelines and deposit us bodily into the midst of the relief effort. Based out of the Bush Theatre’s new bar venue, Unit 18, the production transforms the boiler rooms and dead spaces below the West 12 shopping complex into a promenade performance space.

Designer takis’s sets are nothing short of lavish – and little wonder, with Hightide, the Bush and the National Theatre all backing the play in some capacity. There’s a conference centre, a hotel room, a café bar, a war-torn city street and more, and every new environment is further evidence of high production values and attention to detail. With the audience free to roam, everything – from the posters promoting fictional investors in the rebuilding programme to the papers in the office in-tray – must stand up to close scrutiny, and it does.

The performances, too, are consistently convincing and engaging. Shaun Dooley doesn’t quite reconcile British mercenary Alan’s caring and violent sides into a unified character, but as our guide it’s important he remain sympathetic, and keeping the lid on the violence helps achieve that. Eleanor Matsuura, meanwhile, infuses every female character in the show with distinct but equally potent varieties of strength, independence and (occasionally) warmth, in the hands-down best performance of the night. As Sargon Yelda’s Arabic interpreter puts it, “the Americans have a phrase: ball-breaker.”

So why does Stovepipe still fail to suck the audience in?

Maybe it’s because the design is too slick. The bar and office furniture looks like it was bought yesterday, brand new. Maybe it’s because the one time we actually visit Iraq is the one time the staging is necessarily representative rather than realistic, and the rest of our time is spent in Amman, Jordan, a staging post for forays into Iraq; like Alan, we feel like we’re between places, waiting for the real action to begin.

Or maybe it’s because of the play’s scattergun chronology, which flashes backwards and forwards with nearly every scene and offers very few narrative signposts to help us find our place in Alan’s story. Trusting the audience’s intelligence rather than patronising them is always the right call, but in this case the complexity of the plot requires us to keep disengaging from the moment in order to look at the bigger picture and see where the latest piece slots in – and getting lost in the moment is what allows us to care.

Covering four waves of immigration – French Huguenots, Irish, Jews and Bangladeshis – Bean points a flashing neon finger the size of
the Olivier Theatre at our national tendency towards intolerance.

The play does a great job putting the problems of today’s multicultural London in perpsective, as each generation of immigrants eventually integrates into British life and then takes its turn oppressing the next. It’s enough to make anyone wonder why we’re still considered a go-to nation for anyone fleeing persecution and adversity.

Yet Bean somehow houses this damning admonishment in an epic, centuries-spanning romantic comedy, throughout which the successive reincarnations of a pair of lovers try again and again to love one another despite cultural divides and running gags. And as if that plot weren’t enough, it is itself embedded in a fairly iffy piece of metatheatre.

The immigrants in the detention centre in 2009, you see, have devised the centuries-spanning romantic comedy while waiting on their applications for leave to remain. At its best, this framing device salts the open wound of British hypocrisy: citizenship exams, testing the loyalty of potential immigrants to the nation that banged them up as soon as they arrived? Such exquisite irony. So quintessentially British.

But the cynic in me can’t help seeing the play-within-a-play as a Get Out Of Jail Free card Bean dealt to himself under the table, allowing him to neatly sidestep criticism with the excuse, “that’s how the characters would have devised it.” And at its worst, the device is a megaphone through which Bean can announce (in case we’re a little slow on the uptake) that it doesn’t matter if a character lives through the Blitz and still looks twenty-five in 2009, because that’s the magic of theatre.

The comedy does work. It tempers the worthier observations and keeps the play from turning into art as social work for the nation. So does the star-cross’d romance. After all, the truest measure of a country’s receptiveness to new cultures is the rate of intermarriage. But I don’t need Olivia Colman’s immigration officer Philippa to face front and tell me so before I can appreciate the point.

Bean could do with worrying a little less about whether people will pick up on his meaning. It’s clear enough without all the highlighting, and in overclarifying himself, he runs the risk of closing down alternative interpretations, yanking the subtext into the foreground and robbing the play of depth.

The Holloway end of the story is left to be upheld by in suitably indomitable fashion by Susan Engel as professional suffragist Florence Boorman, braving the hunger-strike with steely conviction and flashes of wise, waspish humour. And as the show progresses, subdued rituals of sympathetic solidarity develop between vast-bosomed, monosyllabic wardresses, frigidly compliant nurses and frightened, stubborn, suffering prisoners.

There was a discernible split in the audience, between those who knew exactly what was coming when a doctor enters holding a rubber tube, and those who didn’t. Several of the latter responded to the ensuing scene of force-feeding by fainting theatrically all over the auditorium. This bout of audience histrionics did nothing to clarify the play’s denouement, but it did suggest that the National is quite right to be putting on a play that revisits this inglorious chapter of British political history.

The play is impressively even-handed with its historical materials, reminding us that men as well as women were still agitating for enfranchisement at the beginning of the twentieth century. And Adrian Rawlins gives a compelling portrait of disintegrating tolerance as Celia’s frustrated, hard-drinking, emotionally isolated husband. But as Her Naked Skin increasingly focuses on the pleasures and price of sexual rather than political liberation, the show’s suffragette narrative often feels like a dutiful appendix to a more seductive central story.

The show’s split-focus also leads to rather wearisome dramatic sprawl, and after a couple of hours some of the audience around me were starting to manifest the despairing camaraderie of prisoners a long way from their release date. In the end, Her Naked Skin is a bit like its heroine: courageous, demanding, articulate, divided, unpredictable and – despite good intentions – ultimately alienating.

Then the play opens to crashing drum’n'bass interwoven with folk violin. The Drum Revolve turns and behind the high walls of the pauper’s study we discover a timeslipped world of suited and medallioned playboys grinding with whores in hot-pants on red leather sofas, watched over by classical murals and a bronze statue of the Virgin, while yet more fashionable revellers masturbate and mug each other in the alleyways between sets. Within a minute director Melly Still’s production has yanked the audience as violently and spectacularly up to date as it has The Revenger’s Tragedy itself.

It’s a play that’s historically prone to split personalities. Originally attributed to Tourneur, now to Thomas Middleton; currently running at both the National Theatre and Manchester’s Royal Exchange; and, in this incarnation, caught between ages. Jacobean squalor exists parallel with contemporary high-society sleaze. Every designer suit is accessorised with a sword, and high-class, high-heeled prostitutes accompany masked and pantalooned nobles at the revels.

Such an ambitious vision demands some impressive ensemble set-pieces to prove just how successfully realised it is. Thankfully these are frequent, breathtaking and varied in tone, from the climactic sword dance, which marries disco and break to Elizabethan formal dancing, to the subdued, funereal coronation of the new Duke, which complements the courtiers’ grave faces with freezing fog and a plaintive lament.

The performers play a comfortable second fiddle to the production elements. Rory Kinnear’s performance as the titular revenger Vindice probably won’t win him another Olivier award, but it’s certainly cause for discussion. Kinnear’s Piato – the puffa-jacketed pimp persona, adopted by Vindice to facilitate his revenge against the lecherous Duke that poisoned his lover – is an entertaining caricature of a cheeky Eastender, while his Vindice is nothing more than an eloquent thug with delusions of noble purpose. No one could imagine Vindice vindicated after Kinnear’s performance; he’s cavalier with the skull of his beloved, and delights more in the act of bloodshed than in its supposed justification.

An unfortunate side effect of this interpretation is that the Duke’s louche son Lussurioso, played charismatically by Elliot Cowan, seems almost sympathetic by comparison. Lussurioso lusts after virgins, especially Vindice’s chaste and virtuous sister Castiza (a righteously indignant Katherine Manners), but is never seen to molest one on stage, instead sending ‘Piato’ to do the sleazy wooing for him: which in turn makes Vindice all the more detestable.

Kinnear’s Piato and Cowan’s Lussurioso are just two of many excellent comic performances on display, but there’s nothing recognisable as a great tragic performance. In this the play favours its modern persona over the classical. The magnificently unrepentant may be morally reprehensible, but they’re much more entertaining to watch than righteous ‘emos’ like Hamlet.