Globe to Globe
Globe to Globe: The Tempest, Shakespeare's GlobeWednesday, 09 May 2012
This music crept by me on the waters. Bangladesh’s Dhaka Theatre’s version of The Tempest took the musical route, and why not? It was always Shakespeare’s most musical play (with extant music for “Full Fathom Five” and other songs written by Robert... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's GlobeTuesday, 08 May 2012
The demands of Titus Andronicus are probably at odds with the constraints of the Globe to Globe season: a travelling troupe would find it hard to get 80 gallons of fake blood through Customs. Nor are they likely to be furnished with the sort of... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Othello, Shakespeare's GlobeMonday, 07 May 2012
The masterstroke of this take on Othello was to draw its focus away from race. It might seem odd to say that of a production in the rhyming vernacular of hip hop in which the Moor was African-American and the rest of the cast were not – but it was... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Richard II, Shakespeare's GlobeSunday, 06 May 2012
Mention that a Palestinian theatre company are performing Richard II and the play’s themes are immediately thrown into sharp relief: usurpation, homeland and banishment, and the idea of a literally God-given mandate to rule amongst a resistant... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Cymbeline, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 04 May 2012
This retelling of the Cymbeline story opened – or at least appeared to open – with the entire cast contributing their tuppenceworth on the issue of what the story of Cymbeline actually was. And fair dos. A “late” and abnormally tortuous... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 03 May 2012
There has long been a conviction in Italian drama circles that there exists a “Special Relationship” between themselves and il Bardo di Stratford: something to do with the complexities of Elizabethan English syntax and the unusual amount of words of... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's GlobeTuesday, 01 May 2012
A comedy of alienation, estrangement, and magical metamorphosis – if ever there was a Shakespeare play made for the linguistic transfigurations of the Globe to Globe season it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unmoored from the familiar English text and... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Richard III, Shakespeare's GlobeMonday, 30 April 2012
When Zhang Dongyu’s charismatic Richard III rose from the dead to take his bows for Sunday’s spellbinding afternoon performance by the National Theatre of China, the actor paused, remaining on his knees to kiss the stage of the Globe. It was a... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's GlobeSunday, 29 April 2012
The rain it raineth every day this week, sometimes with monsoon-like persistence. Yet there’s no dousing the ardour of groundlings and thespian visitors to the global Shakespeare village within the wooden O. Comic exuberance reaches a sophisticated... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Pericles, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 28 April 2012
Something extraordinary is happening at Shakespeare’s Globe. However unlikely the appeal, audiences are flocking to every one of Globe to Globe’s visiting productions. But sometimes logic surely cannot be defied. A full house for Pericles, and an... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 27 April 2012
Of all Shakespeare’s plays, his reprise of Falstaffian humour to please Queen Bess is surely the most specific in its prosaic gallimaufry of earthy English vocabulary. Yet it’s also the most universal in its target-practice at the lecherous,... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Measure For Measure, Shakespeare's GlobeWednesday, 25 April 2012
What a joy this once-in-a-generation season is. From Moscow comes this free-wheeling production of Shakespeare's great morality play, and one that also makes remarkably free with the text too. Even those familiar with Measure For Measure will be... Read more... |
