Polly Findlay’s production of The Merchant Of Venice at the RSC was conceived and created in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris and the rising tide of racial and religious intolerance in Europe gives the play a relevance which was absent four years ago when Rupert Goold set the RSC’s previous production […]
Reviewed by Kevin Riordan (Nanyang Technological University) At the moment it’s hard for a show in Singapore to not be somehow about Singapore. The nation’s fiftieth birthday—branded “SG50”—approaches this August and theater companies have joined, both wittingly and unwittingly, in this moment of national reflection: The Esplanade (the performing arts center whose exterior alludes to […]
Review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Gavin Quinn at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 21st February 2015. Reviewed by Emer McHugh Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway There is a moment towards the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that may have provided the springboard for Gavin Quinn’s production at the Abbey […]
Love’s Labour’s Won [Much Ado About Nothing]: RSC Education Schools Broadcast Royal Shakespeare Company Dir. Christopher Luscombe Royal Shakespeare Theatre/Ravensbourne University 30 April 2015 Much Ado About Nothing, here renamed Love’s Labour’s Won to fit with the RSC’s other offerings during Winter 2014-15, is a play about two people who refuse to countenance that […]
AS YOU LIKE IT, directed by BEATRIZ BATARDA for ARENA ENSEMBLE, at TEATRO CARLOS ALBERTO, PORTO, PORTUGAL. Seen on 22nd February 2014. Reviewed by Miguel Ramalhete Gomes Having premiered at roughly the same time as Nuno Cardoso’s highly political Coriolanus, Beatriz Batarda’s production of As You Like It for Arena Ensemble was often coupled with […]
The Taming of the Shrew [Poskromienie złośnicy], dir. Katarzyna Deszcz, Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce, Poland. Premiere: 12 April 2014 www.teatr-zeromskiego.com.pl Reviewed by Jacek Fabiszak There is not denying the fact that Shrew in the Western world poses a serious challenge. For a variety of reasons: because it is mysoginistic, because it cannot match the complexity […]
Juhannusyön uni (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), directed by Jonna Wickström for The Group Theater, Helsinki, Finland. Date seen: 12 November 2014 Reviewed by Nely Keinänen In the fall of 2014, Ryhmäteatteri (The Group Theater) created a Youth Theater program for 15-20 year-olds, whose first production was a spirited A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For most of the […]
As You Like It, directed by Theu Boermans, Het Nationale Toneel, Koninklijke Schouwburg, The Hague, 21 December 2014. Review by Paul Franssen (Utrecht University). This modern dress production gave a contemporary slant to the dominant themes of As You Like It. The contrast between the Court and the Forest of Arden was updated to that […]
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. Simon Godwin, RSC Schools, 20 November 2014. Reviewed by Sarah Olive, University of York Yesterday, I watched Two Gentlemen of Verona in a seminar room in the University of York’s Law and Management Building with colleagues and students from Santiago, Shanghai and Montana. Perhaps surprisingly, this wasn’t in the […]
Much Ado about Nothing (billed as Love’s Labour’s Won). Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. 4 October 2014. Directed by Christopher Luscombe. Reviewed by Gretchen E. Minton (Montana State University) This fall the Royal Shakespeare Company announced the pairing of Shakespeare’s ‘two great romantic comedies’, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado about Nothing, […]
