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The Taming of the Shrew
People forget that Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew starts with an induction in which a drunken vagabond is to be regaled with a theatrical performance of what is sometimes mistaken for the whole play. The Kate-Petruchio shenanigans is, in short, a play-within-a-play, an imagined world of sex-play and power relations, perhaps challenging to, but…
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Miss Julie
I think that I have never seen a Miss Julie quite like Chulpan Khamatova’s. It’s not just that Thomas Ostermeier, the director, and Mikhail Durnenkov, the adapter, have updated and transposed Strindberg’s 1888 original, making Julie the spoiled daughter of a Russian general rather than a Swedish count, the celebration of New Year’s instead of…
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Ubu roi
Cheek by Jowl’s UBU ROI is a brilliant contradiction. It is austere and messy, infantile and wise, ego and id, beautiful and repulsive. It hangs together and falls apart. Lasts long and ends soon. Grosses out and achieves epiphany. It is not to be missed and – no, it is not to be missed. Not,…
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Druid Shakespeare
Death, in DRUID SHAKESPEARE: THE HISTORY PLAYS, is an invading parasite. Crosses accumulate on grave mounds like sprouts from bulbs, lives owed, as someone says, to God, payment, with interest, for birth in the world. The plays essayed by this Irish company are four in seven hours – the tetralogy of Richard II, Henry IV…
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The Maids
From the moment I saw Alice Babidge’s design for Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS, I knew I would feel differently about this, the third Cate Blanchett import I have seen from the Sydney Theatre Company. It has the virtue of being spare and sumptuous at the same time and makes no distinction between costume and décor.…
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A Magic Flute
Of the historically significant theatrical productions that I wish somehow to have been in a position to see, Peter Brook’s pared-to-its-essence Carmen is near the top of the list. So I approached the same director’s hyper-condensed, multi-lingual A MAGIC FLUTE, presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, with a certain eagerness. The result is basically a…