Dr Peter Kirwan

Tag: 1 Henry VI

  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] (Again) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Every now and again, I’ve been lucky to see a revival of an existing play that makes that play feel freshly written, as if designed for that company and that moment. The reworking of Death of a Salesman for an African American family; Theatre Wallay’s reworking of The Taming of the Shrew as a commentary…

  • Henry VI, Part 1 (MBU Shakespeare & Performance) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Henry VI, Part 1 (MBU Shakespeare & Performance) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Who cleans up the messes created by our leaders? Kyle Showalter, apparently. Summoned onstage by a click from the fingers of Anna Taylor’s imperious Winchester, Showalter’s unnamed servant began sweeping away the red and white petals that had littered the Blackfriars stage during an extended prologue. Later, Showalter’s servant appeared again, laying down a burgundy…

  • Born With Teeth (Alley Theatre) @ The Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage

    Born With Teeth (Alley Theatre) @ The Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage

    It’s quite a leap for a bit of fairly rarified attribution studies to lead to a lavish staging of a piece of slash fanfic. But for Liz Duffy Adams, the arguments of the New Oxford Shakespeare that Marlowe and Shakespeare collaborated on the Henry VI plays were enough to prompt a new ninety-minute play, first…

  • Henry VI Part One Open Rehearsal Project (RSC): Run-through (online)

    Henry VI Part One Open Rehearsal Project (RSC): Run-through (online)

    The three weeks of the RSC 1 Henry VI Open Rehearsal Project – previously discussed on The Bardathon here – culminated on June 23rd with a full rehearsal run through in the Swan rehearsal rooms, as the midsummer light waned through the windows around the room. Running at a stripped-down two hours, this was still a fundamentally whole 1 Henry VI, making…

  • Henry VI, Part One Open Rehearsal Project (RSC): 17 June 2021 rehearsals (online)

    Henry VI, Part One Open Rehearsal Project (RSC): 17 June 2021 rehearsals (online)

    The RSC has been cautious about its reopening in summer 2021. Where other theatres are beginning to tentatively let socially distanced crowds back into their buildings, the RSC has committed instead to a different kind of programme and a different kind of co-presence. The upcoming The Comedy of Errors will make use of the theatre’s unique location,…

  • Henry VI (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

    Henry VI (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

    NB: This review is based on a preview performance. Henry VI, the fifth entry in the Globe’s 2019 Histories Cycle, was a production of compromises, if not a compromised production. Reuniting the ensemble that performed 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V over the summer (with a couple of replacement members), the decision to compress the three parts…

  • The Wars of the Roses (RSC) (film)

    The Wars of the Roses (RSC) (film)

    The Wars of the Roses is one of those iconic productions – like Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – that I never expected to get a chance to watch in full. Peter Hall and John Barton’s three-part condensation of the first tetralogy of history plays was one of the resounding triumphs of the young Royal Shakespeare Company.…

  • The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part 1 (BBC) (film)

    The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part 1 (BBC) (film)

    Given the relative monarchism and conservatism that often marks the BBC’s Shakespeare adaptations, it’s quite something to hear the new Hollow Crown beginning with Judi Dench in voiceover intoning choice excerpts of Ulysses’ famous ‘degree’ speech from Troilus and Cressida. With a slight pause before them, the words “Take but degree away, and mark what discord follows”’ hang…

  • Kings of War (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre

    Kings of War (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre

    In 2009 I was lucky enough to see Toneelgroep Amsterdam perform Ivo van Hove’s Roman Tragedies at the Barbican. That mammoth reworking of Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra remains one of my lifetime theatrical highlights – not just for its length and ambition, but for its cohesive use of space, its innovative flexibility around the actor-audience arrangement, and its thorough…

  • Shakespeare’s Joan of Arc (Henry VI, Part 1) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    Shakespeare’s Joan of Arc (Henry VI, Part 1) (American Shakespeare Center) @ The Blackfriars Playhouse

    NB this review is of a preview performance, and does not reflect the play as of press night The resident company at the Blackfriars works exceptionally hard. Twelve actors are currently performing four Shakespeare plays in repertory six days of the week; not only that, but the whole company perform for fifteen minutes before the…