A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre
August 22, 2008
Considering the RSC’s fondness for revivals (cf the recent Henry VI/Richard III cycle and the touring The Comedy of Errors), it’s perhaps surprising that this is the first time I’ve been to one that I saw first time round. Greg Doran’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of the better productions of the 2005 Comedies …
The Winter’s Tale (Globe Touring) @ The Bodleian Library, Oxford
August 19, 2008
It’s a busy week of theatre for me. I’m seeing the RSC’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream tonight (first glimpse for me of the ensemble who are also performing Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost), and I’m spending the bank holiday in London where I’ll catch the Globe’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Timon of Athens. …
Macbeth: Who Is That Bloodied Man? (Teatr Biuro Podrozy) @ The Square2, National Theatre
August 11, 2008
For two productions only, the National Theatre has opened a new space, the Square2, just outside the main theatre on the South Bank. It’s an odd space, a large flat open area with audience standing around on three sides on stepped platforms behind crash barriers on raked platforms. Only a low wall separates it from …
Henry VI Part III: The Chaos (Young Rep) @ The Door, Birmingham Repertory Theatre
July 13, 2008
It’s not unprecedented to produce one part of the Henry VI trilogy in isolation, but it’s an extremely rare occurrence and a financial gamble that few professional theatre companies can afford to take – who’s going to come and see just one part of a trilogy? Yet for their latest production the Young REP have …
Romeo and Juliet (Globe Touring) @ Coventry Cathedral
June 27, 2008
It had to happen in a week of open-air theatre. The sun shone gloriously on Monday for Warwick Student Arts Festival’s The Tempest, Shakespeare’s Globe cast a cool shadow over the midday Midsummer Night’s Dream audience on Tuesday and Footsbarn’s tent protected the crowds on Tocil Fields from the elements on Wednesday. It couldn’t last. …
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Footsbarn) @ Tocil Field, University of Warwick
June 26, 2008
Footsbarn Theatre are a theatre troupe in the most traditional sense, touring in caravans and performing in their own ‘Big Top’-style tent. Formed in Cornwall in the 1970s, though now based in France, the company is truly international, representing a wide range of performance styles, languages and visual symbols. Their current carnivalesque production of A …
A Midsummer Night’s Dream @ Shakespeare’s Globe
June 25, 2008
It’s quite frustrating, on an afternoon when you know you’re going to have to leave a performance five minutes early, when the show begins with a five minute drum duet between two competing musicians. However, this was very much my fault rather than the Globe’s – I had squeezed this production in immediately before a …
The Tempest (Warwick Students’ Art Festival) @ University of Warwick Piazza
June 24, 2008
This pared-down version of The Tempest was the first of two Shakespeare production in the 2008 Warwick Student Arts Festival. Its novel setting, in the mock classical amphitheatre of the University of Warwick’s Piazza, combined with a sunny Monday afternoon to create a festive atmosphere for what was essentially an exhibition piece, Shakespeare for Shakespeare’s …
Macbeth (WUDS) @ Warwick Arts Centre
June 22, 2008
Warwick University Drama Society’s new studio production of Macbeth was an ambitious endeavour, both technically and conceptually. The stage was dominated by a huge static-filled screen at the rear, while the space itself was filled with black flats and five hanging banners with the names of Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, Duncan and Malcolm running from ceiling …
The Revenger’s Tragedy @ Manchester Royal Exchange
June 12, 2008
There are advantages and disadvantages to seeing two productions of the same play in close proximity to each other. The main advantage, to my mind, is the opportunity to see multiple interpretations of the same text and thereby learn more about the actual text itself, to see through the reading of an individual director to the …
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