Stage review Spectacle swamps emotion in arena frenzy

A luminous bow hovers in the darkness while the arena-like stage is filled with smoke.

- Arifa Akbar

A figure emerges: Katniss Everdeen, the girl from District 12 in Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic universe, played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film franchise. With her appearance, the 74th Hunger Games begin - and no special effect is left unhit.

Closely following the plot of Collins’ first book in the YA series, and the Lionsgate film of 2012, Matthew Dunster’s production is a grand-scale manifestation of the dystopian Panem. It is a place where haves and have-nots are divided by districts and children are pitted against each other as “Tributes” in a deadly TV gameshow, forced to kill for entertainment. The last one standing wins the prize of survival.

There is an array of screens, thundering sounds of the canon whenever a Tribute dies and a gantry that stretches across the stage, representing the tree Katniss (Mia Carragher) climbs to escape being butchered.