twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

Macbeth – Double, double toil and trouble;

Posted on September 7, 2023 by twilightdawning

O, full of scorpions is my mind

What: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Stratford Upon Avon

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

When: August-September 2023

Could things get any worse?

An old record by the Who echoed with the words:

“Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”

Here at the RSC, the same problems that have haunted recent productions look like they are going to be around in the new era. Gregory Doran’s time at the helm was rather mixed. Now as we come out of an interim period, with Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey as co-artistic directors, things have really not changed. This production of Macbeth is diabolical, and I don’t mean devilish.

Continue reading →

What air’s from home. Haply this life is best

Posted on May 19, 2023 by twilightdawning

What: Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon (RST)

When: 22nd April-27 May, 2023

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

An excellent production!!

But that does need some explanation and clarification.

What do we have here?

Continue reading →

The King’s Name is a Tower of Strength

Posted on July 9, 2022 by twilightdawning

What: Richard III by William Shakespeare

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: Late June to early July 2022

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

This is a very good RSC production. It fades a little in the final third but on the whole, it has much to offer. And frankly, if you look through my recent reviews of the Stratford-Upon-Avon-based theatre, it hasn’t been too often I have been able to say that in the last 5 years.

Of course, the shutdown because of the pandemic has affected the percentages, but some productions have been a real struggle.

The recent Much Ado Nothing had some good sections. Measure for Measure and the Comedy of Errors were absolutely excellent, and far, far beyond my expectations. But, most often the RSC seems to have been embroiled in experimentation, tricky notions and slightly bizarre shapes for their own shape.

Continue reading →

O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook!

Posted on July 10, 2019 by twilightdawning

What: Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company

When: July 2019

“The poetic atmosphere is one of religion and critical morality. The religious colouring is orthodox, as in Hamlet.”[1]

“There have, however, been others, notably in the last century, such unlikely yoke-fellows as Gervinus in Germany and Walter Pater in England who have seen the play neither as expressive of cynicism and disgust nor as filled with the spirit of the Gospels and yet believe it to be no ‘meaningless’ entertainment but serious and coherent exploration of certain moral issues. It is in support of this view that the following pages are written”.[2]

I have two touchstones, benchmarks if you will, when it comes to Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” and the above quotations are examples of their understanding of the play and the differences between those understandings. Gregory Doran’s production of the play in Stratford-Upon-Avon may have become a third.

Continue reading →

Well, I say Troilus is Troilus,… this is… Cressida, this is not Cressida

Posted on October 22, 2018 by twilightdawning

What: Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon, England

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

When: 18th October 2018

As always, in recent years, I have titled my assessment of an RSC production with a quote or two from the play itself, but I must admit, even to myself, that this title is a little hard to understand and consequently it won’t help you to get to the heart of what I’m trying to say in this review unless I break it down a little.

To explain I must digress a little…

Continue reading →

A Strange Fish!

Posted on November 30, 2016 by twilightdawning

Holy Gonzalo (Act V Scene 1), Batman! The RSC may have a hit on their hands.

What: The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company

When: 24th November 2016

This production of the Tempest attempts to break new boundaries in theatre-making with the very first use of “live motion capture” in a major stage production … and it succeeds… just…

Continue reading →

“Having been praised for bluntness, (he) doth affect a saucy roughness”

Posted on September 1, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: King Lear by William Shakespeare

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK

In the recent Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) presentation of Hamlet, a classroom scene is created at the beginning at which the title of the play is spoken to announce young Hamlet’s graduation and then the scene is cleared and the play proper begins. I think it was meant to be clever but really it served no purpose. At the beginning of this performance of Lear a group of maybe 10 actors take the stage shrouded in something like lepers’ attire or flimsy beggar garb as shelter against the cold night. When the actors enter for the first scene proper they leave hastily too – shooed away. But this time the importance of this scene is not lost on the rest of the production. Rather, it adds. And like most everything here, it is solid and meaningful.

Solid.

Continue reading →

Ascend the Bright Heaven of Invention

Posted on October 5, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: Henry V by William Shakespeare

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: October 1st, 2015

Sometimes the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “devices” to make a particular production innovative and relevant to the modern audience don’t work. I’m amongst their sharpest critics when they don’t. Occasionally they do. Now whilst audiences members that I spoke to after the performance and during the interval were divided, I have to say I fall into the positive camp when it comes to this most recent production of Henry the Fifth.

Continue reading →

I Understand A Fury In Your Words. But Not The Words.

Posted on June 15, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: Othello by William Shakespeare

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: 11th June 2015

“We’ve tried to make it less ridiculous, so we’ve cut some lines… which leaves us open to the accusation that by doing so we have made it less sublime – we’ve cut some of the music of Othello”.

– Hugh Quashie (Othello) in conversation with the Stratford-Upon-Avon Herald.

It is indeed interesting when the principal actor in a Shakespeare production describes the plotline of one of the Bard’s plays as being ridiculous – so ridiculous that it is worth spoiling the rhythm and rhyme of the play to correct. One might even consider this a kind of arrogance.

Continue reading →

It wearies me; you say it wearies you

Posted on May 26, 2015 by twilightdawning

What: The Merchant of Venice

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

When: 21st May 2015

A writer in the UK newspaper “The Telegraph” pointed out how far short of the production at the Globe in London, the current RSC version of “The Merchant of Venice” falls. It is indeed unusual for two parallel productions to be running like this. It is, if you will, a surfeit of Merchants.

I cover only the RSC’s productions so I do not have the benefit or disadvantage of comparison. I, therefore, can only point out how the RSC’s production fails on its own merits. The audience were enthusiastic. The cast were spirited but bad directorial and staging decisions doomed it from the start.

Continue reading →