A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare from Russia. Part of the RSC open air Dell performances, July 2019. Reviewed by Sara Marie Westh Sometimes you stumble on something truly excellent, and it becomes all the more so by being unexpected. I have attended the RSC Dell performances for several years now, and have enjoyed myself […]
Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Bronwyn Barnwell, at The Shakespeare Institute, February 2019 Reviewed by Sara Marie Westh There is a part of Love’s Labour’s Lost I never liked. It is not the ending – I rather like that no one gets off easy. It is not the weird Russian masquerade either – it is […]
Love’s Labour’s Lost; directed by Dan Swern for Shake and Bake Theatre, New York City, New York, 22 Dec 2018. Reviewed by Kelsey Ridge (University of Birmingham) Shake and Bake’s Off-Broadway production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, staged in the round, is not what anyone would think of as “Shakespeare how it’s meant to be done.” […]
1. Uluslararası Shakespeare Festivali: The First International Shakespeare Festival in Turkey Reviewed by Anna Carleton Forrester On the homepage for the first international Shakespeare festival in Turkey a banner reads “Prometheus of World Literature Honors Turkey.” But over the course of ten days, the organizers, scholars, students, and contributors of the inaugural festival, hosted at […]
As You Like It by William Shakespeare, directed by Kate Saxon for Shared Experience / Theatre by the Lake, at Oxford Playhouse, 18 November 2017 Reviewed by Peter Malin References to the play are to William Shakespeare, As You Like It, ed. by Alan Brissenden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) Where to start? With […]
The Taming of the Shrew, translated and directed by Jack Nieborg, Shakespeare Theater Diever, The Netherlands, 26 August 2017. Reviewed by Paul Franssen, Utrecht University The annual open-air Shakespeare production at Diever, staged by amateurs, seems to be drawing bigger crowds every year. This year’s production of The Taming of the Shrew makes it clear why: […]
The Globe’s Much Ado About Nothing: Sombreros, Tequila, and Exoticization By Mayra Cano, California State University-Fresno Matthew Dunster’s reimagination of Much Ado About Nothing, set in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution, employs a variety of stereotypes about Mexico and Mexicans, demonstrating a misunderstanding of this period in Mexican history. This alongside the production’s use of […]
Rahm (Measure for Measure), written and produced Mahmood Jamal, dir. Ahmed Jamal, Rahm Films Limited, HKC Entertainment, 2016 Reviewed by Dr. Thea Buckley, The Shakespeare Institute This week marks seventy years since India and Pakistan became separate countries, the joy of Independence marred by the trauma of a Partition that turned brother against brother. Millions of […]
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 […]
Pamela Schermann’s Othello: Iago’s Capitalist Tragedy, Time Zone Theatre Company @ Waterloo East Theatre, London, 10 March 2015. Cast: James Barnes (Othello), Trevor Murphy (Iago), Charlie Blackwood (Desdemona), Ella Duncan (Emilia), Denholm Spurr (Cassio). Reviewed by Charlene Cruxent One table. Three chairs. Five actors. White curtains. That’s all it takes for Pamela Schermann to create […]
