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…
What: The Two Noble Kinsmen by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare
Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company
When: October 2016
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) performances are oh-so-relevant. Or at least they think they are.
But are they trying a little too hard?
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.
What: Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
Who: Royal Shakespeare Company
Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
When: May 26th 2016
Mmm… first of all you’re asked to delay your night at a Shakespeare play then your hotel manager tells you that the play has had somewhat “mixed reviews”. Then you hear the story of how the first night’s audience were given a refund because the play was running well behind in its mad dash to be ready for press night. As you take your seat in the theatre perhaps you’re right in not having too high an expectation of the night’s proceedings.
On the way in you had handed over your £4 for the programme. Back in the day, the programmes were fully of scholarly essays about the play itself. These days, it has become customary for the programme to be full of pieces about the themes that the director and producer have decided to emphasise in this performance. There is an essay about the European Union and the danger of Britain breaking away from it. There is an interview with the director about the gender changes in the Dramatis Personae.
At least you know what’s coming. The married couple next to us who didn’t buy a programme (having paid £110 for a pair of tickets) left at the interval mumbling that “it wasn’t worth watching”.
What: Hamlet
Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon
Who: Royal Shakespeare Company
When: March 31st 2016
The RSC’s new production of Hamlet has some excellent actors – and has the first black Hamlet and the RSC’s first predominately black cast for Hamlet in its history. It is brave and lively and interesting.
But something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
When: 25th February 2016
Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
When the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) last staged “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (https://twilightdawning.com/2011/08/09/what-masques-what-dances-shall-we-have-to-wear-away-this-long-age-of-three-hours/) , they achieved a production which gave us a strong and evocative (transformed) Bottom and Titania but a rather forgettable Hermia and Helena. Five years later, I think they have perhaps given us the opposite whilst once again managing to give us an entertaining production which like its predecessor is worthy of accolades.
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.
What: Volpone or the Fox
Who: Ben Jonson
Where: The Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
When: July 16th, 2015
If I was going to see the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at either The Royal Shakespeare Theatre or The Swan Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon or any of their increasingly frequent transfers to London, New York and the world at large, I would always buy a programme.
They are only £4 and reading between the lines, you will find an awful lot about the RSC’s goals in their production of the play at hand. You will then, in turn, get a feel for how their production will differ from the one you were hoping for (for some infamous examples, see my reviews of the 2011 production of The Merchant of Venice https://twilightdawning.com/2011/05/28/all-at-sea/ and the following year’s Troilus and Cressida https://twilightdawning.com/2012/08/13/remixed-shakespeare-for-the-hip-hop-generation/ amongst others). You will also find that sometimes the play production that they are presenting falls short of its own goals.
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.
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.
twilightdawning 