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Antony and Cleopatra (National Theatre/NT Live) @ Broadway Cinema

In November, Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo became the first pair of co-leads in over thirty years to win the two Best Actor prizes at the Evening Standard Theatre awards. The casting alone, perhaps, made this not entirely unexpected; two Oscar-nominated actors in a big prestige National Theatre production directed by Simon Godwin, in one …

Second view: Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican

I last saw Roman Tragedies eight years ago, when I was a teeny and energetic PhD student for whom theatrical marathons were par for the course. The production was, at the time, one of the biggest influences on my understanding of theatre; it remains on my mental list of my top five Shakespeare productions, and …

Antony and Cleopatra (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars, Staunton VA

Although Staunton’s Blackfriars was constructed first, my experience of it comes through having seen several shows previously in the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Virginia’s theatre feels very like the Wanamaker, if the Wanamaker breathed out substantially and took itself a lot less seriously. The resident company (most of the current acting company have been in …

Antony and Cleopatra (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre

Writing about web page http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/antony-and-cleopatra/ Michael Boyd’s Antony and Cleopatra follows interestingly from Lucy Bailey’s Julius Caesar, the resident ensemble’s last foray into the Roman histories. While the retention of Darrell D’Silva as Mark Antony may have initially suggested a continuity between the two productions, Boyd’s Antony was in many ways the polar opposite of …

Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican

Writing about web page http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=9488 A six hour version of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra stitched together. With no interval. In promenade. In Dutch with surtitles. It’s been a while since I’ve subjected myself to a Shakespearean endurance test (The Histories), and this was the kind of hardcore event which doesn’t come …

Antony & Cleopatra (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory

Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory have followed a similar format for most of their ten seasons to date, putting on two classic plays a year, one after the other. This tenth anniversary season, though, marks the first time that they have tried to link their two productions into a cohesive whole, with the same ensemble …

Antony & Cleopatra (RSC) @ The Novello Theatre

Friday night was the chance to revisit, for one final time, the excellent ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, bookending my Complete Works marathon quite nicely with the same production, seen for a third time almost a year after I first saw it in the Swan. It was very good, but I was disappointed at how much its …

Antony and Cleopatra (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre

Last night’s play was the wonderful, universally lauded ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ starring Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter, which I reviewed way back when I first started this blog. Then, though, I was standing in the top gallery of the Swan. Tonight, I was on the front row, at times mere inches from the actors. And …

Public Spaces And Private Places @ The Shakespeare Centre

MAY 24TH 2006 (backdated) I’m writing this blog in part for the CAPITAL Centre, a collaboration between the University of Warwick and the RSC. CAPITAL, and the RSC‘s Education department, are putting on over the course of the year a short series called ‘Slants On Shakespeare’, which are getting academics and practitioners together in the …

Antony & Cleopatra (RSC) @ The Swan

APRIL 13TH 2006 (backdated) Whew. Well, as opposed to ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Doran’s ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ was a very traditional production, but very, very good. It says something that for its three hours length, I didn’t even notice that I was standing, the time just flew. Whereas the cast of ‘Romeo’ were dwarfed by their …