The play deserves consideration for reasons other than those being afforded it just now, and one wonders whether Smith will take this opportunity to work on changes that are about more than simply replacing a single letter in someone’s surname.
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Like I say, it’s good entertainment. But its broad, incautious tone rarely feels suited to making a profound or nuanced statement on Anna and Henry’s neocolonialist adventuring.
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It’s bold, current, sporadically funny, fatally ungoverned and exasperating. Is it worth 190 minutes of your life? Ultimately, no.
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After this bad start, and quite a jinxed series of previews, Rare Earth Mettle is even worse on stage than it was on the page...Smith’s writing is disappointingly functional, often banal and uninteresting.
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Ultimately though, Rare Earth Mettle is frustratingly hard to connect with and, in Pirie's uncompromisingly stark production, proves as dry as the salt flats on which it is mainly set.
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Rare Earth Mettle has enormous scope, but it tries to do too much...It’s incredibly smart, but there’s not quite enough heart.
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