Articles tagged with: Shakespeare
Summer 2016 at American Players Theatre: It’s high drama, comedy where ardor meets Arden
Preview: It’s like seeing Shakespeare in the Forest of Arden, this bucolic Wisconsin festival that bears the name of American Players Theatre. Set in the rolling hills of Spring Green, just west of Madison, American Players has been producing stellar – literally star-covered – theater every summer since 1980. This summer APT juxtaposes Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” with Carlyle Brown’s “The African Company Presents Richard III.” Those timely spirits are already in flight, with many more plays to come. Here’s an overview.
‘King Lear’ spun as a parable of oppression when Belarusian troupe goes for dark farce
Review: What’s the first image that overtakes you when you think of Shakespeare’s “King Lear”? Perhaps the broken old man, carrying forth the dead body of his youngest daughter. Or the powerless king, cheering the all-shaking thunderstorm as he howls his rage. In the Belarus Free Theatre production on view at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the unwavering focus is the insanity and chaos of life in the king’s repressive regime. ★★★
Chicago Shakes’ ‘Macbeth’ for young adults explores the dangers of unchecked ambition
Preview: Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is a tale told by an idiot full of…no, wait a sec. That’s not right. The idiotic tale is life – life itself, which Shakespeare’s reckless, overreaching, murderous Macbeth has messed up beyond redemption. In its 75-minute reduction of the Bard’s Scottish play aimed at junior high and high school students, Chicago Shakespeare Theater explores themes of power and evil, personal accountability and the dire consequences of rash action. “Macbeth” opens Jan. 24 at CST.
‘Hamlet’ at American Players Theatre: Agony and wit, and clear view of a timeless tragedy
Review: As summer turns into fall, it’s worth making time to catch Chicago actor Matthew Schwader as that restlessly inquisitive and acid wit, Hamlet, who comes magisterially unhinged in Shakespeare’s masterwork. “Hamlet” is enjoying a gloriously long reign at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. ★★★★★
‘Henry VIII’ at Chicago Shakespeare: Depicting the king in kindly tint, as Elizabeth’s forebear
Review: ★★★★
Role Playing: James Ridge thrives in cold skin of Shakespeare’s smiling serpent, Richard III
Interview: He’s the very devil in the guise of a cherub, this smiling and murderous Richard III embodied by James Ridge in the American Players Theatre production of Shakespeare’s royal tragedy. Ridge’s duplicitous Richard echoes Lady Macbeth’s cold counsel to Macbeth in his own bloody quest for a crown: “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.”
Shakespeare to hit the Chicago parks as CST presents free tour of ‘Taming of the Shrew’
Short “Shrew” in 11 neighborhoods.
‘Richard III’ looses a venomous schemer on summer stage of American Players Theatre
A snake in the palace. 4 stars!
When comedy runs amok, ‘Much Ado’ is nearly undone at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Beatrice as a hysterical wit. 2 stars
Stratford Festival’s Shakespeare tradition echoes in the well-told tale of ‘Cymbeline’
Young love put to the test. 4 stars!
Chicago Shakespeare’s lean and brisk ‘Timon’ zooms in on crash-and-burn of a needy Midas
Mega-rich tycoon falls low. 4 stars!
Ian McDiarmid, revving the engines of anger, ready to take on Shakespeare’s raging Timon
Preview: The Scottish actor, a Shakespeare veteran, talks with Chicago On the Aisle about the dark and turbulent mindscape of “Timon of Athens.” The play opens May 2 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
It’s the Bard’s birthday! Simon Callow reflects on the fanciful weave of ‘Being Shakespeare’
Interview: As “the soul of the age” turns 448 on April 23, the celebrated actor talks with Chicago On the Aisle about his one-man play “Being Shakespeare,” presented by Chicago Shakespeare Theater at the Broadway Theatre through April 29.
Role Playing: Diane D’Aquila’s twice regal portrait as lover-monarch in ‘Elizabeth Rex’
Interview: Diane D’Aquila, who brings Queen Elizabeth I to regal and vulnerable life in Timothy Findley’s “Elizabeth Rex” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, says acting in this gripping, keenly honed production “is a like a dance out there, and it’s scary as hell.”
Queen’s agony over love and duty gets royal treatment in CST’s searing ‘Elizabeth Rex’
Shakespeare’s in the barn. 5 stars!
CST will stage remixed ‘Othello’ in London at Cultural Olympiad
“Funk It Up About Nothin'” team creates work for pre-Olympics festival.
