Country Matters
Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, Texas-style? Sure, why not? My review of Marin Shakespeare Company’s broad-as-a-barn C&W adaptation is up on the Marin Independent Journal‘s snazzy new website. Hie thee hence to check it out.
The Perils of Pericles
Acclaimed British director (and original Zaphod Beeblebrox) Mark Wing-Davey is back at Berkeley Rep with Shakespeare (& co.’s) troubled shaggy-dog drama Pericles, Prince of Tyre. KQED Arts has my review.
Good Bad King
Marin Shakespeare Company gave Shakespeare’s King John a rare staging–perhaps the first production in Marin–and I reviewed it in today’s Marin Independent Journal. And I didn’t even mention that he’s my 26th-great-grandfather! No conflict of interest there, no sir.
Rockin’ Verona
California Shakespeare Theater is doing more Shakespeare than usual this season. Since Jonathan Moscone took over as artistic director in 2000, he’s brought in more than the occasional non-Shakespeare production the company had done before that but at least one play by someone else each year, and since 2004 it’s been half-and-half. This season’s four plays are also split evenly between the Bard and other authors—there’s Titus Andronicus and Taming of the Shrew alongside Shaw’s Candida—but in a way there are three Shakespearean works in the mix because the one completely new play, The Verona Project, is based on Two Gentlemen of Verona, sometimes believed to be William Shakespeare’s first play, and far from his best.
Stages of Grief
It’s hard enough dealing with grief when you understand what happened, and why and how it happened, but when what’s happening to someone you love is completely incomprehensible, it’s mighty hard to get your mind around it and resign yourself to anything. For whatever reason, plays all over Berkeley depict families dealing with highly unconventional versions of loss.
Ten for Twenty-Ten
Here we are pretty much back where we started on this blog, with my Top Ten list of my favorite shows for the year. It was awfully hard to whittle the 126 shows I saw this year in the Bay Area down to ten, which is probably a good sign: that’s a far better problem to have than not being able to think of ten good ones. I limited myself to shows that actually opened in 2010, which disqualifies shows like Ann Randolph’s hilarious monologue Loveland that otherwise would be high on my list. Most links are to my original reviews earlier in the year, and the shows are more or less in order of preference.
Doesn’t Look Shrewish
I reviewed Marin Shakes’s Pirates of the Caribbean take on Shakespeare’s problematic comedy in today’s Marin IJ, so what are you waiting for? Check it out.
