Peter Kirwan
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Pericles (Yohangza) @ Seoul Arts Centre
August 3, 2021
The sands of time have already covered up much of history. On Lim Il-jin’s enormous, deep stage, sand expands as far as the eye can see, into the dark recesses. The faded magnificence of the ages emerges from the sand: the colossal head of a statue of Diana, lying on its side; a chandelier near …
The Winter’s Tale/Le Conte d’Hiver (Shakespeare in the Ruins) @ online
August 1, 2021
Winnipeg’s Shakespeare in the Ruins has been producing Shakespeare in the picturesque Trappist Monastery Ruins since the early 1990s. While so many outdoor-based theatre companies around the world have been among the first to return to in-person performances during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, artistic director Rodrigo Beilfuss has been more ambitious, spearheading …
The Winter’s Tale (SHAKE Festival) @ Zoom
July 31, 2021
Following the initiation of the live online Zoom/YouTube readings of Shakespeare by The Show Must Go Online early in the pandemic, a number of other organisations have worked to put on Shakespeare readings of their own. SHAKE Festival is unusual among them for two reasons: its ticketed entry (as opposed to inviting donations) and its …
Mugen-Noh Othello @ Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre
July 30, 2021
Some fifty years after the events of Othello, a wandering traveller called Waki arrives in Cyprus, which is now back under Turkish control. By beginning this Mugen-Noh rendition of the tragedy at a point when the deaths of Othello, Desdemona and the rest are almost out of living memory, director Miyagi Satoshi adds a further dimension to the …
Lear is Dead (Nine Years Theatre) @ Drama Centre Theatre
July 28, 2021
What are we doing when we commemorate the dead, when we tell the stories of our leaders after they have gone? Nelson Chia’s reimagining of King Lear for Nine Years Theatre from 2018 (made available to World Shakespeare Congress delegates) asks as much of the storytellers as of those whose story is being told. In doing so, the …
The Tempest (Contemporary Legend Theatre)
July 27, 2021
Tsui Hark’s spectacular, operatic Tempest, co-directed with Wu Hsing-kuo (who also plays Prospero), is a mesmerising take on Shakespeare’s play. Available on the MIT Global Shakespeares site, and made available in its 2004 incarnation to delegates at the 2021 World Shakespeare Congress, it’s an extraordinary show of power as a truly magical Prospero co-ordinates an …
The Tragedy of Macbeth @ Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio
July 26, 2021
The opening of Tang Shu-Wing’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (recorded in 2019, and made available to World Shakespeare Congress delegates) announces the arrival of a modern couple in a dream world, through which they will navigate the world of Macbeth in the guise of that play’s two protagonists. The dream framing is never given more …
Hamlet @ Theatre Royal Windsor
July 25, 2021
A burst of applause unusual in UK theatres greeeted the entrance of the cast of Hamlet, who walked onstage in a line and stood facing the audience in what looked like a premature curtain call. Perhaps the applause was conservative (this was Windsor, after all), a throwback to an earlier time when the arrival of …
Ophelia (Cake Theatrical Productions) @ Esplanade Theatre Studio
July 22, 2021
‘My name is Ophelia, and today I will begin by playing Hamlet’. There are many great lines in Natalie Hennedige and Michelle Tan’s Ophelia, performed in English at the Esplanade Theatre Studio in March 2016, but the play is perhaps best summed up in this one, spoken by Jo Kukathas’s Ophelia. This is a deconstruction of …
The Tempest (Nottingham Playhouse and Lakeside Arts Centre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre Car Park
July 3, 2021
Storms were scheduled for the matinee of Nottingham Playhouse and Lakeside Arts Centre’s outdoor Tempest, a co-production aimed at reintroducing family audiences to outdoor theatre as part of both venues’ reopening strategy; however, the sun shone brightly throughout. Martin Berry’s 80-minute production (also The Bardathon’s first bit of in-person Shakespeare for well over a year) …
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