The National Portrait Gallery takes a medieval approach to defending privileged stories of national heroes such as Shakespeare. … Read the post a Shakespearean portrait after the Internet Reformation
Among the cocky young men in the new ruler’s entourage, one wears a t-shirt declaring, “business is good.” The back of his t-shirt adds, “my business is killing.” Such a combination of power, inhumane interests, and brutality, writ large, animates Shakespeare’s King Lear. For a production with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Director Robert Falls has … Continue reading King Lear’s great falls: Robert Falls directs at Shakespeare Theatre
Euripides’ ancient Greek play Ion shows the god Apollo to be violent, immoral, and duplicitous. We moderns don’t imagine gods to be like this. Neither did Ion, a foundling raised within Apollo’s Delphi temple to serve its needs. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Ion, directed by Ethan McSweeny, brings together family drama, bildungsroman, Broadway … Continue reading Shakespeare Theatre's tragic Ion
Rebecca Bayla Taichman’s Twelfth Night, performed at Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre, prioritizes psychological drama and psychoanalytic conceptualism. … Read the post psychodrama: Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Theatre
In Shakespeare’s time, controversy raged about the values of words, images, and actions. Is God’s word meant to be proclaimed in liturgy, or is God most effectively encountered in personal reading of scripture? Can images and physical gestures support communication with God? Authorities across the sixteenth century suppressed physical practices of worship, white-washed interiors of … Continue reading Synetic’s Macbeth: a theatrical exploration of Shakespearean sense