U–Venas no Adonisi (Venus and Adonis) (Isango Ensemble) @ Shakespeare’s Globe
April 22, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.isangoensemble.org/#!future-productions The tagline for the ‘Globe to Globe’ Festival reads “37 Plays, 37 Languages”; a tagline which excludes the Isango Ensemble’s U-Venas no Adonisi, the thirty-eighth ‘play’ (a dramatised version of Shakespeare’s poem) spoken in not one but six different languages: IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SeSotho, Setswana, Afrikaans and South African English. This …
The Alchemist (Let Them Call it Mischief) @ The White Bear, London
April 12, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.ideastap.com/Groups/Group/feace54c-ca91-4fc4-97c7-9e7100bdcbdf#Overview As previously noted, despite the fact I teach the specialist Jonson module at Nottingham, I’ve never yet seen any of his plays in performance. Happily, the ongoing mission of London’s White Bear Theatre pub to promote the wider early modern canon couldn’t avoid Jonson for too long, and last night …
A King and No King (Willing Suspension) @ Boston University Student Theatre
April 7, 2012
The annual Shakespeare Association of America conference is in Boston this year, a city I’ve never been to but which is thoroughly stunning, and a great backdrop to some very stimulating papers. Being in Boston also gave me the opportunity to see in person the Boston University students of Willing Suspension, a young theatre company …
Romeo and Juliet (Headlong Theatre) @ Nottingham Playhouse
March 15, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.headlongtheatre.co.uk/productions/production_details.php?Title=Romeo_and_Juliet_&production_id=29 Robert Icke, director of Headlong Theatre’s new touring Romeo and Juliet, has clearly been taking notes from company director Rupert Goold. As with the last Headlong show I experienced, King Lear, everything up to and including the kitchen sink (in this case, an open air ice-cream stall) had been thrown …
The Taming of the Shrew (RSC) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal
March 14, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/the-taming-of-the-shrew/ The Taming of the Shrew carries a great deal of baggage with it. The gender politics that are inevitably foregrounded in production (is this inevitable? Are there other issues that are being obscured?) are read through the identity of the director, through our own filters of acceptable behaviour, and through …
Twelfth Night (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
March 11, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/twelfth-night/ The RSC’s first salvo in the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival is a major new trilogy of plays on the theme of shipwrecks, all performed by one company of actors. The absence of Pericles is a mystery (actually, it’s not a mystery at all – it’s not a play that sells …
King Lear (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory) @ The Tobacco Factory, Bristol
March 4, 2012
Writing about web page http://sattf.org.uk/currentfutureproductions/kinglear2012.html With only one Shakespeare play in this year’s Tobacco Factory season (the company are putting on The Cherry Orchard in place of a second), SATTF director Andrew Hilton has chosen to go back to the play that launched the company twelve years ago. Continuing the work of last year’s similarly …
The Comedy of Errors (NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
March 1, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/67933/productions/the-comedy-of-errors.html The NT Live juggernaut rolls on. Now well-established as a theatrical/cinematic event, it was a pleasure to see the enormous Screen 1 of Nottingham’s Broadway cinema packed out with a lively audience for the latest offering, a broadcast of Dominic Cooke’s hugely successful The Comedy of Errors, which I missed …
Much Ado about Nothing (Demi–Paradise Productions) @ Lancaster Castle
February 26, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.demiparadiseproductions.co.uk/index.html Location can be a blessing or a curse for a production. Site-specific theatre is one thing, where the play is written or adapted specifically for the area in which it will be realised; but Shakespeare transplanted into grand locations can run the risk of not mapping consistently onto its surroundings, …
Measure for Measure (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre, Stratford
February 17, 2012
Onto a bare stage strode Raymond Coulthard’s Duke. Smiling to the audience, he raised his arms and, with commanding gestures, caused the house lights to be brought down, the music to stop and the on-stage lamps to illuminate. From its very beginning, Roxana Silbert’s new production of Measure for Measure established the Duke’s absolute control …
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