Globe
Globe to Globe: As You Like It, Shakespeare's GlobeTuesday, 22 May 2012
In the Globe to Globe season, the Caucasus is proving as fruitful a ground as any for new views on old texts. Georgia’s Marjanishvili company, under director Levan Tsuladze, proved the region has a special style with their version of As You Like It... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's GlobeMonday, 21 May 2012
The Globe to Globe season has enjoyed tremendous goodwill from audiences and critics alike. And this has been largely repaid, for it’s been a joy and a wonder to learn just how much contemporary relevance can be mined and brought into sharp relief,... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: King Lear, Shakespeare's GlobeSunday, 20 May 2012
Like a post-Soviet Oedipal X-Factor, the Belarus Free Theatre on Friday night gave one of the greatest productions of King Lear London has ever seen. Forget our local Lears, with naked theatrical knights and casts in emotional straitjackets: this... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: King John, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 19 May 2012
You might have wondered if, when Armenia was offered King John as part of the Globe to Globe season, they felt they’d drawn the short straw. Not a bit of it. Shakespeare’s early history play, the action of which pre-dates those for which he is... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 17 May 2012
The two parts of Henry IV parts 1 and 2 are very macho plays. Men drink, tell rude jokes, strut and lie their way into power and influence. In Globe to Globe's Latin American takes on the Bard, some hijo de puta and de puta madre seem fitting... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, Shakespeare's GlobeMonday, 14 May 2012
There was always going to be one Borat moment in this festival. And it came courtesy of the Albanians, who, for comic effect, in the middle of their Henry VI, Part 2 indulged in the gratuitous harassment of a mentally handicapped person. It got the... Read more... |
Globe to Globe: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 12 May 2012
The concept sounds like something dreamed up towards the bottom of a bottle in a Harare shebeen: Two Gentlemen of Verona performed by two gentlemen in Shona. But if any of the plays can withstand the stripped-down treatment, it’s the likeable but... Read more... |
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... |
