Canadian Stage’s annual Shakespeare in High Park (formerly known as Dream in High Park but apparently that was too confusing) is always fun for its picnic-under-the-stars tone, even if the plays are bad. Which is important, because this year’s productions aren’t exactly good. Neither is a complete loss- both Titus Andronicus and the slightly more […]
Nothing says feminism quite like equal opportunity fat jokes; enter Theatre@First’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry the 4th. Gender-bending such a grotesque, masculine figure as Falstaff might sound unworkable, but as with most other elements of this production it’s a surprisingly serviceable and believable approach to giving the play contemporary appeal. It’s always a challenge to […]
While the summer months can be sweltering in the Greater Boston area, many actors escape to the suburbs to perform outdoor Shakespeare for local audiences. Many companies choose to perform crowd favorites like As You Like It and Comedy of Errors, but The Gazebo Players of Medfield present The Winter’s Tale, a late Shakespeare romance, […]
Hub Theatre features an impressive ensemble of male actors to perform and excel in a laugh-out-loud, hold-your-sides, bring-your-Shakespeare-philes production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] at Club Café. This production works in ways that their prior performances have not. First, the small cast is a tight ensemble unit featured fluidly throughout the evening […]
The first thing you need to know is that I saw a very different King John than the rest of you will. Arriving at the theatre, I opened my program to discover, with utter heartbreak, that the wonderful Graham Abbey was out for the evening and would be replaced by his understudy in the show-shaping […]
It’d been 5 years since I last saw my favourite Shakespeare play live, and many years since I’d seen it done well. So I was more than excited to see Stratford’s current production, despite my whole-hearted belief that the company’s chosen leading man was at least 20 years too young (and a sprightly man to […]
Occasionally (and I mean very occasionally, sadly) I see a Shakespeare play that makes me deliriously happy. This was one of those plays; the first at Stratford since Des McAnuff’s glorious 2011 Twelfth Night. I got a little bored in Act 5 (Act 5 of Midsummer being one of my least favourite things ever) and […]
The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays to stage. The action is fairly simple and the characters generally pretty accessible but there’s magic, a monster, a spirit, multiple apparitions and a big on-stage storm. A big budget, a brilliant directorial brain or, ideally, both is required to pull it off without things looking […]