Dr Peter Kirwan

Tag: A Midsummer Night's Dream

  • 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…

  • Dream Online (RSC) (live-stream)

    Dream Online (RSC) (live-stream)

    In the post-show talk-back for the RSC’s online virtual-reality Dream, the creative team talked enthusiastically about the ‘potential’ of the medium for creating digital theatre productions with open-ended narrative and global interactivity with mass audiences. ‘Potential’ feels like the best word to describe this Dream: a diverting experiment with some beautiful visuals and music, but which felt…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream @ The Bridge Theatre

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream @ The Bridge Theatre

    ‘Not for my fairy kingdom’ roared Oliver Chris’s Oberon during his big fight with Gwendoline Christie’s Titania, early in the Bridge Theatre’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The subtle textual change was part of an extensive series of adjustments designed to allow Oberon to remain King of the Forest while putting him on the receiving end of the love potion trick, in a gender…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation (RSC/Lovelace Theatre) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation (RSC/Lovelace Theatre) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal

    The RSC’s much-heralded return to regional touring was already a phenomenon before it opened. Erica Whyman’s audacious experiment is touring a full RSC production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to cities across the UK, with a different amateur theatre company joining them at each venue to play the Mechanicals and a fairy train for Titania made up of local…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Theatre Company) @ Sidney Harman Hall

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Theatre Company) @ Sidney Harman Hall

    It’s been nine years since I saw the Shakespeare Theatre Company tour to the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon with their wonderful production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, and I’m delighted to have been able to return the visit while I’m based at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC this month. I’m also fortunate that this September marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre for a New Audience) @ Polonsky Shakespeare Center, streamed to cinemas

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre for a New Audience) @ Polonsky Shakespeare Center, streamed to cinemas

    I’m yet, to my memory, to see a professional Shakespeare production in the US, so the decision to film and broadcast Julie Taymor’s spectacular thrust-stage take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a welcome one. Notwithstanding Spiderman (and perhaps that show’s cataclysmic production history unfairly detracts from the ambition and achievement therein), Taymor’s proven ability to juggle large casts, technical marvel,…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lakeside Arts Centre/New Theatre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lakeside Arts Centre/New Theatre) @ Lakeside Arts Centre

    The latest collaboration between Lakeside Arts Centre and Nottingham New Theatre repeats some of the wonderful traits and intellectual problems that characterised last year’s Doctor Faustus. Crammed full with innovations and some beautifully funny physical work, the production struggled, upon reflection, to make sense of its disparate threads. The key innovation was the conflation of Oberon/Theseus…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Propeller) @ Sheffield Lyceum

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Propeller) @ Sheffield Lyceum

    The Bardathon has had a slow start this year, as writing and marking priorities haven’t given me a huge amount of time for theatre. New reviews will be further delayed as my first show of the year, Propeller’s wonderful A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was seen as part of a module trip. As many of my students…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Michael Grandage Company) @ The Noel Coward Theatre

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Michael Grandage Company) @ The Noel Coward Theatre

    Michael Grandage is an excellent director, particularly of actors. His Othello at the Donmar some years back provided what may prove to be a definitive Othello in Chiwitel Ejiofor, and his Lear starring Derek Jacobi in the same venue found rare intimacy in the play against a stark backdrop of boards. Yet as Grandage leaves behind the Donmar for the…

  • Midsummer Night’s Dreaming (RSC) via Google+

    Midsummer Night’s Dreaming (RSC) via Google+

    Saturday 21:42 Over the Midsummer weekend, the RSC is putting on its fortieth production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a difference. In the latest of a series of big-money partnerships (following last year’s partnership with BP on the Shipwreck season), the company is putting on the play via Google, Twitter and live performances in real…