Declan Donnellan’s Cheek by Jowl production has a dangerous magic. This is an all-male, modern-dress production with Russian actors, with the worst English surtitles ever. So ignore the screens and fix your gaze on the actors, who combine athletic excitement with an almost miraculous sensitivity. The play is about music, love, sexuality and deception. Andrei Kuzitchev, a man, plays Viola, a woman who disguises herself as a man. This is not the same thing as the Elizabethan practice of boy actors: here, you’re dealing with the painful-comic ironies of mature sexuality being used as a ploy, both to feed love and to hide it.

For Orsino (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), music is both ironic excitement and an aid to cooling off. Malvolio (Dmitry Shcherbina), a lofty, handsome man, fantasising about Olivia and social advancement, is deceiving himself. The first half is all in black (designer, Nick Ormerod), with Orsino’s attendants wearing the high-collared uniforms from the age of Tsar Nicholas II. The set consists of four black linen wall hangings rolling down from above; in the second half, everything is cream and white. This is the kind of sophisticated simplicity that reminds you of Peter Brook’s best work: it tells the story and defines the mood. Two complaints. One: Donnellan makes some minor changes in the sequence of scenes in order to make points. This is new in his work. Two: Viola and Aguecheek’s duel scenes go way over the top. The rest of the acting is brilliantly balanced: it is both intensely physical and carefully restrained. At the end, Malvolio is back in service, quietly vengeful but loftily servile as ever: a brilliant touch. Fantasy has collapsed; reality rules again, breeding a new, sad fantasy of revenge. Four stars

Sit and Shiver
New End, Hampstead

The first half of Steven Berkoff’s play reminded me of Brecht’s hilarious early comedy, Bourgeois Wedding. The difference is that with all his brilliant observation, Brecht is cold: he exposes his characters like freaks in a fairground. Berkoff, by contrast, has an unsentimental love for his people, a Jewish family performing the shivah, the traditional mourning, for grandfather Monty. Berkoff, who also directs, has a wonderful ear for the language of family claustrophobia, the shared schmaltz, the melancholy reminiscences, the intolerances of an ingrown family. Sue Kelvin and Linal Haft, Monty’s daughter and son-in-law, are an unforgettably gruesome example of marital resentments; and in Sam, Monty’s blind old brother (Barry Davis), Berkoff has created a great little character: a crusty, generous, intelligent eccentric. When, in the second half, an unexpected visitor (Louise Jameson) reveals a secret about dear old Monty, it is Sam, and Monty’s two grandchildren, who have the humanity to heal the wounds. This is the best play Berkoff has written, and I hope its short run is not the end of its life. Three stars

Killing Castro
Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford

Good thing it’s open season on Americans: it guarantees Brian Stewart’s amusingly lightweight and entirely harmless play a friendly reception. Time: 1960. Setting: the CIA. Subject: the CIA’s demented plans to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The main problem is style. The play starts as downmarket Mel Brooks, which might have been a good idea. Springtime for Castro? Anyway, the conference of the four guys is repeatedly hampered by incompetence. Then the tone changes to a touch of the David Mamets. Not a good mix. The characters are familiar types: crypto-fascists, ex-army operator, cynical scientist, idealistic lawyer, shifty, avuncular chairman. Typical exchange: “What about morality?” “I don’t give a shit about morality.” The predictable ending flirts with the Mel Brooks style again, which soothes the fevered brain. Playing time: two hours. Two stars

The Field
Tricycle

This is a tale of greed, murder and lies. I call it a tale because John B Keane’s play (1966) has a solid, old-fashioned storytelling quality. Keane, who died in 2002, was a hugely popular chronicler of Irish life, and this play, directed with a sense of rising tension by Roisin McBrinn, is one of his best.

An old widow wants to sell a piece of land. Bull McCabe (Lorcan Cranitch) has been grazing his cattle on it for years and feels that he’s entitled to it for half the price. When another bidder arrives, McCabe will do anything to stop him. This is a big, raw, garrulous play. The ending is a bit abrupt, but the acting is powerful and nimbly avoids the temptation to be melodramatic. Three stars