Despite a rocky start with “additional text” consisting of embarrassingly bad rhyming couplets, director Jackson Gay’s Much Ado About Nothing proves a great night out at the theatre. It’s an unconventional but still hilarious take on one of the Bard’s most accessible plays.
All about the Bard
A guide to modern Shakespeare performance on stage and screen: reviews, interviews, resources, and podcasts.
2015 films according to Shakespeare
Love Shakespeare? Listen to our Shakespeare podcast, 21st Folio. Love these 2015 films? Find out what we do at Seventh Row to cover films like these. Last night, I posed a little challenge on Twitter, to pair Shakespeare quotes with 2015 films: Challenge: summarize this year's awards hopeful films with a Shakespeare quote. You're disqualified […]
Kurzel’s Macbeth emphasizes tone over text
Kurzel takes his cues from the text, but he expresses his ideas about the text through images and sounds — the whistling wind, the clashing swords, and the ghostly hooded figures — rather than through the dialogue. The verse, in Kurzel’s hands, is barely even identifiable as poetry. But what is Shakespeare without the unforgettable language?
Henry V at the RSC is more Hal than Harry
Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 chronicle the growth of feckless frat boy Hal into sober ruler-in-waiting Harry. Henry V should be the culmination of that transformation: the growth of a young King into a leader. Yet the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry V feels more like Henry IV Part 3. Though this entertaining production is well-acted and effectively staged, Henry himself still acts like a prince and not a king. This may be Director Gregory Doran’s aim: showcase Harry’s (Alex Hassell) ongoing maturation by starting him off as green and unimposing. But Shakespeare’s original text establishes Henry as a man who wields authority: he is a “dread sovereign,” “terrible in constant resolution.”
Pericles, Prince and Tiresome at Stratford
Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre (rebranded by the Stratford Festival as The Adventures of Pericles) is less a play and more a series of scenes strung together. It opens with incest and runs through murder, resurrection, and the threat of sexual slavery before a visitation from the goddess Diana. Remarkably, director Scott Wentworth manages to impose unity on this unruly text by highlighting the theme of feminine virtue that runs through the play.
A terrific ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at Santa Cruz Shakespeare
A successful production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” must satisfy three requirements: Beatrice and Benedick — the lovers in a merry war of wit — have to be lovable, the story needs to be clear, and the jokes have to land. Even Kenneth Branagh’s otherwise brilliant and definitive film of the play suffered from […]