A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play of changing roles. Theseus gives up being a warrior to be a groom, and turns Hippolyta from a prisoner into a bride. Lysander is the lover of Hermia, and then Helena, and then Hermia again. Titania falls from Queen of the Fairies to sport for her husband, and Bottom changes from a weaver to an ass and then to something of a poet. So this is an appropriate play to choose for an experiment in which the actors themselves also change roles—an experiment taken on by Folding Chair Classical Theatre in New York City, directed by Marcus Geduld…

Image credit: Royal Shakespeare Company
Michael Billington points out in his review of Romeo and Juliet (which to the reviewer saw at London’s Roundhouse, and which will be coming to New York this summer) that ‘the eternal difficulty with this play is making us believe that the tragedy is inherent rather than a tacked-on product of a faulty postal service’. Rupert Goold manages to overcome this problem by presenting the prologue as an audio guide that is listened to by Sam Troughton’s Romeo as he visits Verona. By portraying Romeo as …

In the programme that accompanies the current production of Hamlet, Peter Holland informs us that ‘Stalin did not like Hamlet,’ adding, by way of an explanation, that ‘Plays about assassinating the ruler were not recommended under a dictatorship’. A few years ago Rupert Goold directed Macbeth (played by Patrick Stewart) as a tyrannical despot, a man who delegated the murder of his enemies to his henchmen. In this current Hamlet, Patrick Malahide’s Claudius, although a consummate, slick statesman on the surface, is a similar kind of usurping king, …

Image credit: Simon Annand, National Theatre.
Have you ever wondered what Hamlet was like before his father died? Was he more concerned with being a man or a prince? Was he truly in love with Ophelia? And did he always think so much? These are just some of the questions that were answered in director Anthony Banks and writer Michael Lesslie’s new specially commissioned play that showed alongside Hamlet at the National Theatre.
The story follows these famous characters a decade before Hamlet. Polonius’ family have arrived at Elsinore, making Laertes …

Image credit National Theatre.
One of the most famous Shakespearean speeches, “to be or not to be”, is about to begin and Hamlet is at the front of the stage in a hoodie and puffing on a cigarette. This is Hamlet in modern day: he is dressed more like a student than a prince; Ophelia is first found listening to indie band The XX; and the players wear t-shirts with acid house smiley faces and “villain” written across it in capital letters. If you’re a hardcore Hamlet-ite, you have been warned.
The …

Cheek by Jowl’s The Tempest
If understanding the sixteenth-century language of a Shakespeare play can be daunting at times, watching it in Russian might sound positively masochistic. Cheek by Jowl’s The Tempest, in Russian with English subtitles, however, proves a surprisingly liberating experience. As a non-Russian speaker you find yourself more engrossed in the action, and it emphasises how Shakespeare is supposed to be appreciated: onstage and not simply in books.
At under two hours with no interval, the production is fast-paced. The play begins when Prospero, who has been exiled on …

t’s not often you go the theatre and find yourself surrounded by young people laughing. Not just laughing, but laughing at Shakespeare. Pilot Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet pulls out all the stops to get the audience, largely made up of school children and students, to laugh out loud. The only problem is that it’s at sexual innuendos, which of course Shakespeare has many of, but in this play it’s at ones that were never quite there.

Imagine a world rather like Elizabethan England, except with goblins, magic, and an all-powerful army, the Diamond Empire, (reminiscent of that other Empire that Luke Skywalker battled against) that ruthlessly rules over all the land. This is where A. J. Hartley’s second novel, Will Power (Tor, September 2010, $25.99), is set.

It’s certainly the season for ballet: Natalie Portman is already tipped as an Oscar favourite for her role as the tortured ballerina in Black Swan, Emily Blunt is starring as a ballerina in The Adjustment Bureau, and even Cheryl Cole is trading her harem pants for a tutu in her latest single Promise This. If you want to watch ballet at its best, however, the Birmingham Royal Ballet Company touring production of Kenneth Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet is unmissable…

The good news about this Old Vic production of The Tempest is that the cast had less of a problem with the declamation; if the way the words were spoken didn’t give them new meaning for the audience, they did not hamper the general sense either. The other piece of good news is that Sam Mendes’ direction is as strong here as it was for As You Like It. In moments it is quite brilliant and clearly demonstrates that his rise to Hollywood A-list director was no fluke…