What: Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
Where: The Swan Theatre @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Waterside, Stratford-Upon-Avon
Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
When: 13th December 2018
It has been a strange year for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). It just got stranger. Their take on – should I say adaptation of Timon of Athens – is an unusual one. And that is to say something quite remarkable because this play is seldom performed.
What: Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon,
Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
When: 4th July 2017
The RSC’s current production of “Titus Andronicus” is a bloody mess.
And that is both a good thing and a bad thing.
“Titus Andronicus” is meant to be violent and bloody and the RSC have achieved that with great aplomb.
However, “Titus Andronicus” is meant (in my view) to be macabre rather than comedic and here too much is played simply for laughs.
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.
twilightdawning 