Times of Change at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 2019 By Sheila T. Cavanagh, Emory University 2019 marked a transition in leadership at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) from Bill Rauch to Nataki Garrett. This final season of Rauch’s tenure as Artistic Director presented a host of remarkable productions, although the strongest plays suggest that OSF might currently be […]
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.” […]
King Lear, translated and directed by Jack Nieborg, Shakespeare Theater Diever, The Netherlands, 8 September 2018. Reviewed by by Paul Franssen (Utrecht University) This year, the Diever amateur theatre had chosen King Lear for their annual production. In line with some other recent stage adaptations of Shakespeare plays, the tragedy was set in the world of […]
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 […]
Hamlet (directed by Lars Romann Engel for the 2017 Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet’s Castle, Kronborg Castle, Elsinore, Denmark. Seen: 3 August, 2017. https://hamletscenen.dk/en/platforms/the-shakespeare-festival/hamlet-2017-uk/ The review also makes brief reference to Ophelia – Noh (idea and script: Ujin Sakurama), performed by the Tokyo-based Koh Lo Sha Noh company at the 2017 Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet’s Castle, […]
Kings of War; directed by Ivo van Hove for Toneelgroep Amsterdam at Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria. Seen on 5th June 2015 Reviewed by Ludwig Schnauder Ivo van Hove first introduced himself and the Toneelgroep Amsterdam in Vienna in 2008 with his superb Romeinse Tragedies (Roman Tragedies), an adaptation of Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. […]
Edward II by Christopher Marlowe; directed by Nora Schlocker for Schauspielhaus Wien, Theater Basel and Wiener Festwochen at Schauspielhaus Wien, Vienna, Austria. Seen on 31st May 2015 Reviewed by Ludwig Schnauder “Edward II. Die Liebe bin ich by Ewald Palmetshofer after Christopher Marlowe”, this is the full title of this co-production by Schauspielhaus Wien, […]
Hamlets; directed by Daniel Tyler for The Young REP at the Birmingham Library, Birmingham, UK. 21 March 2015, [the only] matinee. Reviewed by Thea Buckley and Sara Marie Westh Hamlet and Hamlet is the singular traditional pinnacle of theatrical achievement, the measuring stick held up to the actor’s self and the world. But with great […]
Miranda; directed by Oskaras Koršunovas for OKT/Vilnius City Theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania, 17 July 2011. Reviewed by Paweł Schreiber The daughter The title of Oskaras Koršunovas’s performance is, significantly, not The Tempest, but Miranda. In Shakespeare’s play she is one of the most straightforward characters, a naive young girl always subordinated to a man with […]
The Tempest; directed by Maja Kleczewska for Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz, Poland, 4 February 2012. Reviewed by Paweł Schreiber The despot’s home In Maja Kleczewska’s staging of The Tempest, there is no island. It is substituted with a monstrously large, dilapidated room, filled with the detritus of years of family life – a random assortment […]
