The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, directed by Maria Aberg, RSC, Swan Theatre, 8 March 2018 Reviewed by Peter Malin I hadn’t intended to review this production but, given its enthusiastic reception in the press, I thought a dissenting voice might be of some value. In 2014, Maria Aberg inflicted considerable damage on Webster’s […]
The Cardinal by James Shirley, directed by Justin Audibert for Troupe at Southwark Playhouse, 2 May 2017 Reviewed by Peter Malin References to the play are to James Shirley, The Cardinal, ed. by E. M. Yearling, Revels Plays Series (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986) Conventionally-staged productions of early modern plays, in period costume, have […]
Reviewed by Andrew Cowie John Webster’s The White Devil must have a label on it somewhere in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s files saying, ‘Avoid this play, and if you must do it, make sure a woman directs it’. Maria Aberg’s new production at the Swan Theatre in Stratford is the first since the Australian director Gale […]
We are in the gym at a public school with the school motto, Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body), overhead. There’s a stage at one end and a border of black soil with skulls poking through it all round the acting area. A man in a black suit, wearing […]
Originally published on The Bardathon, 5 May 2013. Playing in repertory with Hamlet, Maria Aberg’s new production of As You Like It shared more than just a company that reunited the leading players from her spectacular King John last year. The same foundational level of muddy soil that was exposed throughout Hamlet to finish that play in an upturned graveyard emerged again here, but […]
This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen. Talking to the Audience By Bethany Prottey For an English undergraduate, my earliest experiences of Shakespeare were surprisingly uninspired. At the age of fourteen I was just one bored teenager […]
This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen. King John, Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. by Maria Aberg, 14 May 2012 at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon By Will Sharpe The stage is set. The stage is carpeted. The carpet is […]
