William-Shakespeare
This production of Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice” tries to have it both ways: a show about intolerance, bigotry, and hatred is set in a ‘politically correct’ past.
Read MoreThis daring musical version of “The Merchant of Venice” provides a fascinating re-imagining of a classic play that explores many of the themes and tropes of the original more deeply than many modern productions do.
Read MoreShakespeare’s “Coriolanus” deals with the difficultly of recognizing superiority at a time of radical social breakdown, specifically when it is democracy that is in extremis.
Read MoreWe are a long way from the love-destroyed-by-hostility pieties of Romeo and Juliet, but Actors’ Shakespeare Project director Tina Packer wants to make Troilus and Cressida fit into that reassuring and earnest mold.
Read MoreAs this is his only work which Shakespeare himself titles ‘comedy,’ a company may feel an obligation to elicit laughter. Ironically, this duty can become burdensome.
Read MoreIt is encouraging that the list of recommendations for October isn’t filled with musicals. Are straight plays back? I wouldn’t count on it in this economic climate. So let’s bask in the chance to hear words without music.
Read MoreDirector Gus Kikkonen and cast come up with a bright, literate presentation of William Shakespeare’s play “Measure for Measure,” a potentially dark comedy pregnant with power.
Read MoreMultiple Google searches suggest that no one is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the second of Ben Jonson’s tragedies. I don’t think I will live to see a production of CATILINE, but attention should be paid to this awkward but powerful script. Filled with moral strength, perceptive realpolitik, and rich poetry, it proffers a brilliant serio-comic meditation on political gangsterism.
Read MoreThe likable Commonwealth Shakespeare Company staging leans very heavily on the comedy in ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, minimizing the Bard’s melancholic undertow.
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