Cymbeline at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University Theatre, Boulder CO., August 5, 2016 Reviewed by Harriet Archer Starring a wicked stepmother, a death-like sleep, a last-minute reprieve by a servant, and the platonic kindness of some rustic strangers, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline looks very like the story of Snow White at times, and Disney’s Snow White at that. The Colorado Shakespeare Festival company took this […]
Richard III, translated and directed by Jack Nieborg, Shakespeare Theater Diever, The Netherlands, 3 September 2016 Reviewed by Paul Franssen (Utrecht University) This year, the venerable Diever Shakespeare festival celebrated its 70th anniversary. Ever since the Second World War, this village in the North of the Netherlands has staged a Shakespeare production during the summer […]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, dir. Theu Boermans, Het Nationale Toneel, Koninklijke Schouwburg The Hague, The Netherlands, 20 August 2016. Review by Paul Franssen (Utrecht University) One usually imagines the fairies in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream as diminutive creatures, small enough to “hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear” (2.1.15). The Victorians saw them as childlike. […]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream/ Uda gau bateko ametsa/ Sueño de una noche de verano @ Cristina Enea Park, San Sebastián, Directors: Fernando Bernués & Iñaki Rikarte, Adaptor & translator: Patxo Telleria, Company: Tanttaka Teatroa Reviewed by Elizabeth Jeffery “Will you miss the wedding of the year?” This year San Sebastián, Basque Country, is Europe’s Capital of Culture, along […]
Kesäyön uni (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), directed by Esa Leskinen for Ryhmäteatteri, performed at the Suomenlinna Summer Theater, Helsinki, Finland. Date seen: 31 August 2016 Reviewed by Nely Keinänen Just getting to the Suomenlinna Summer Theater is an adventure: first a short ferry from the Helsinki Market Square to the island fortress of Suomenlinna, then […]
Romeo and Juliet dir. Danielle Irvine, Perchance Theatre in Shakespearean performance at Cupids (NL), 2016 Reviewed by Rob Ormsby The seventh season of Shakespearean performance at Cupids (NL) extends the traditions that theatregoers have become accustomed to there. The cast includes actors familiar from past seasons, though the company (Perchance theatre since 2014; formerly known […]
The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Susan Gayle Todd and produced by the Austin Scottish Rite Theater and The Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective. At the Austin Scottish Rite Theater, August 3, 2016 Reviewed by Michael Saenger Whatever you might think is Shakespeare’s greatest play, Falstaff is almost certainly his greatest character. Shakespeare was […]
Review of Murray McGibbon’s King Lear in Original Pronunciation by Terri Bourus When I took my seat in the Wells-Metz theater in Bloomington for Murray McGibbon’s staging of King Lear, the first thing I noticed in the theatre-in-the-round set, was a stack of old tires, placed so that they were just at my feet, in the […]
Richard III, dir. Imogen Beech for Combat Veteran Players (https://www.combatveteranplayers.org.uk). Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 26 June 2016. Reviewed by Joseph F. Stephenson The Combat Veteran Players is a worthy organization. According to a press release on their website, “the CVP is a theatre company composed of a diverse range of ex-service personnel from different branches […]
The Alchemist, dir. Jenny Eastop for Mercurius Theatre (https://www.mercuriustheatre.co.uk/). The Rose Theatre, London, 11 June 2016. Reviewed by Joseph F. Stephenson Mercurius Theatre and its award-winning director/producer Jenny Eastop have enjoyed a fruitful relationship with The Rose Theatre in recent years. The company’s deft hand with non-Shakespearean early modern drama has been evidenced by […]
