Category: Shakespeare

Bell Shakespeare present THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare in the Playhouse at the Sydney Opera House. Shall I simply write the bare and naked facts of my experience in the theatre: it was good, it was bad; I liked it, I hated it, or, should I try to give an analysis of why I felt that way? THE WINTER’S TALE by William Shakespeare was written in the reign of James I, the Jacobean era. With PERICLES (1607-8), CYMBELINE (1609-10) , THE WINTER’S TALE (1610-11) and THE TEMPEST (1611) we enter the period of Shakespeare’s Tragicomic Romances … from PERICLES…

BELL SHAKESPEARE presents MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING by William Shakespeare at the Drama Theatre, in the Sydney Opera House. A set design (Stephen Curtis) sits in the space in a dominating fashion. A giant fresco wall of romantic images of giant mythical figures, the impact luscious at first glance, but on closer study reveals signs of wasting on the edges and hasty repair and ‘gutting’ by a large folding door, centrally. Pieces of odd and ruined furniture spread across the room – a piano of ruined tones and wear, included. There is a sense of a time when the wealth…

  SIREN THEATRE CO presents AS YOU LIKE IT by William Shakespeare in Bay20 Carriageworks, Sydney. AS YOU LIKE IT begins at court where Dukes have usurped Dukes, brothers have fought brother, and daughters are separated from families and become ‘sisters’ to unite and run off into exile. All end in the Forest of Arden. This mythical version of Arden – “a sylvan sanatorium for the political exiled, the lovelorn, and assorted undesirables…it’s topography being a fantastical mixture of flora and fauna, including snakes, lions, and palm trees.” It is where magic and the balm of nature gives room for…

Company B Belvoir presents MEASURE FOR MEASURE, written by William Shakespeare. Adapted & Directed by Benedict Andrews, for the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St. From Benedict Andrews’ Director’s notes in the programme:A PLAY OF MIRRORS. MEASURE FOR MEASURE is my third Shakespeare staging concerned with the mechanics of power. JULIUS CAESAR (2005) dealt with the theatrics of government, and THE WAR OF THE ROSES (2009) raised the spectres of sovereign power which haunt our concept of society. MEASURE FOR MEASURE looks into the ‘very nerves of state’ where the economies of desire and law interlock. This MEASURE FOR MEASURE is set…

  Melbourne Theatre Company presents RICHARD III by William Shakespeare at the Sumner Theatre, Melbourne. This is my third meeting with the Duke of Gloucester- Richard III in the last couple of years. Firstly, the extraordinary one hour ‘reduction’ created by Pamela Rabe and Benedict Andrews, to serve that Director’s particular agenda for his vision of the great cycle of the historic rivalry between the Houses of York and Lancaster in the Sydney Theatre Company’s THE WAR OF THE ROSES, based on Shakespeare’s eight plays, where The Duke was played as a petulant brat- “a monstrous clown” cavorting in a…

  Sydney Theatre Company and The Border Project in Association with the Adelaide Festival of Arts present VS MACBETH (Most of it) by William Shakespeare at the STC Wharf2. On entering the theatre, a warning sign on computer screens hanging from the front lighting bar, on the sides, tell us to prepare to play Chinese Whispers. The first that was passed along my row of seats was “THIS PLAY IS CURSED.” This was indeed a prescient warning for what followed. This is a collaboration with an Adelaide based company The Border Project and the Sydney Theatre Company via The Residents.…