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Shakespeare's Globe, London

Grupo Galpão's rough-and-tumble production of Romeo and Juliet has been at the Globe before, 12 years ago, and you can see why the Brazilians were invited back. Coming in at barely 100 minutes – even Baz Luhrmann's cinema adaptation was longer – this is an energetic sprint through Shakespeare's best-known romance that swaps teen angst for evocative folk music...

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.   Henry IV Part Two, Elkafka Espcaio Teatral , dir. by Ruben Szuchmacher, 15 May 2012 at The Globe, London By David Ruiter, University of Texas at El Paso Ruben Szuchmacher and the Elkafka [...]

For decades, Britain ignored European, African and Asian theatre. But do we now have an uncritical acceptance of anything foreign?

Do we in Britain suffer from theatrical xenophobia? I used to think so. As a young critic, I was appalled by how little we saw outside the familiar Anglo-American rep, and our snooty attitude to visiting companies. Now in 2012, as we relish the delights of the

Two correspondents write in the same week worrying about capital letters. The first, working in ELT, has noted that many people write Past Perfect rather than past perfect (and likewise for other names of tenses). Which is it, he wonders? The second, working in the building industry, wants to know how to deal with such sentences as Wet rot has been noted in the door frame (photograph 2)....

Roundhouse, London

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is wearing a boar's head. He struts across the steeply raked stage, a sinister figure who you wouldn't want to meet in the forest on a dark night. He raises a gun to the sky, takes aim and fires. King Henry VI in a shower of red petals falls to the ground like a wounded bird and dies.

It's a startling image, one of many in this production,...

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.   Henry IV Part One, Compañia Nacional de Teatro Mexico , dir. by Hugo Arrevillaga, 14 May 2012 at The Globe, London By David Ruiter, University of Texas at El Paso Under Hugo Arrevillaga’s [...]

Shakespeare's Globe, London

If all the theatre in Georgia comes anywhere close to the standard of the Marjanishvili company, then the job of theatre critic there must be the most covetable in the land. At the end of its irresistible As You Like It, they got a standing ovation (at least from those not on their feet already). Its conception of Arden is of a small, makeshift stage – theatre...

I'm not sure I understand your note about the Hecate "scenes" since there is only one scene with this character in it, and it would seem that in order to include this you would only need to...

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Shakespeare's Globe, London

The Latin for apricot, says the very informative Armenian gentleman sitting beside me, is prunus armenicus (Aremnian plum). He's telling me this because the Globe has been filled with the sound of the duduk, an instrument traditionally made from the wood of an apricot tree, as the Sundukyan Theatre's production of King John gets off to an exuberant start.

It may have...

Take a controversial line from a controversial play, and then look at how that line is interpreted in 100 different languages.  That's the goal set by Dr. Tom Cheesman of Swansea University.

The play?  Othello.

The line?  “If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black”.
Perhaps somebody can explain to me the controversy in that line?

I suppose the...