Twelfth Night, Watermill, dir. Paul Hart, York Theatre Royal. 19 May 2017. Reviewed by Sarah Olive This production was one of two offerings from Watermill Theatre at the second York International Shakespeare Festival (Romeo and Juliet was the other). Both traded heavily on the incorporation of live music into the productions: Romeo and Juliet with […]
Hyde Park, dir. Mike Cordner for the University of York Department of Theatre, Film and Television (https://www.york.ac.uk/tftv/). Scenic Stage Theatre, University of York, 9 June 2016. Reviewed by Joseph F. Stephenson Hyde Park is a masterpiece of Caroline theatre. Written in 1632, the play represents a precocious early effort by James Shirley, a writer […]
H(2)O – Teatr Strefa Otwarta of Wroclaw, York International Shakespeare Festival, Performed and devised by Anna Rakowska and Piotr Misztela, New Schoolhouse Gallery, York. 11 May 2015 Reviewed by Sarah Olive (University of York) I have just walked across town from H(2)O – a devised production based on Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship in Shakespeare’s play – straight into the Gillygate […]
Restoration era incidental music to The Tempest, Pyramus & Thisbe, Opera Restor’d/Hand Made Opera, York International Shakespeare Festival, Musical dir. Peter Holman, National Centre for Early Music, York, 10 May 2015 Reviewed by Sarah Olive (University of York) This Sunday afternoon concert, held in the converted church that houses the National Centre for Early Music (and had been my polling station […]
Hamlet: Drama of Vengeance – directed by Sven Gade, Heinz Schall for Silents Now at the York International Shakespeare Festival at Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. 9 May 2015 Reviewed by Sarah Olive, University of York This is the first instalment in a series of around ten reviews which I’ll be writing to celebrate the […]
Antony and Cleopatra, a rehearsed reading of Dir. George Costigan York Theatre Royal, York 22 February 2015 My relationship with Antony and Cleopatra is as unstable as its protagonists’. Seeing Elizabeth Taylor’s depiction of the Egyptian queen as a six year-old led to a juvenile obsession with bath salts in order to recreate her […]
A Winter’s Tale Common Ground Touring Theatre, dir. by Hannah Davies and Tom Cornford, Friargate Theatre, York, 11 March 2014. Review by Sarah Olive I had spent the day of this performance writing about oral history interviews on Shakespearean theatre as a ‘people’s critique’ worthy of sustained, scholarly attention in performance history. Then two of my department’s PhD […]
