REVIEW: The Tempestuous (Basement Theatre)

June 15, 2023

[Promising Pastiche] Award-winning comedian Penny Ashton has once again delved into classic texts to present their tropes in a new light. A mash-up of Shakespeare’s plays and modern-day reality TV, The Tempestuous is a funny and clever romp. Replete with cross-dressing, disguises, bawdy jokes, puns, wordplay, and musical numbers, it is an excellently written script that Shakespeare himself would be […]

SCENE BY JAMES: The Battle for Shakespeare, or, is the Pop-up Globe as you like it?

April 30, 2017

[Pop-up Globe 2017 Season] At Auckland’s Pop-up Globe, Shakespeare is enjoying a 400-year-old career resurgence. Shattering any lingering perceptions that Shakespeare might be elitist or alienating, this year 80,000 people have paid paying anywhere from $1 to stand as a ‘groundling’ in the yard, to $299 for a royal room at the side of the stage. The atmosphere in the […]

REVIEW: Titus (Pop-up Globe)

March 15, 2016

[Bad Taste] Originally staged as a Unitec graduate show with an all-male cast in 2012, and subsequently revived at Q Theatre in 2013, Titus returns for a third time at the Pop-up Globe. While I can’t speak for the quality of the previous seasons, I can safely say that you won’t see a more accessible version of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus […]

SCENE BY JAMES: The Pop-up Globe Experience

February 29, 2016

[A Worthy Scaffold] The original Globe theatre has a terrific origin story. Shakespeare and co were leasing ‘The Theatre’ in Shoreditch, but they didn’t like their landlord. A careful reading of the lease revealed that while they didn’t own the land, they did own the playhouse.  A few days after a white Christmas of 1598, the acting company turned up […]

REVIEW: Passionate Acts (SHAKEITUP!)

February 12, 2014

Passionate Acts Shake It Up [by Sharu Delilkan] “Not Shakespeare again” I thought en-route to the preview of Passionate Acts, Grae Burton’s and Alistair Browning’s scenes of passion from Shakespeare’s most popular plays. Driving up the entrance to the magnificent Pa Homestead I lamented how and why Shakespeare persists when there is so much modern and contemporary excellence around, some […]

REVIEW: Macbeth (Young Auckland Shakespeare Company)

February 7, 2014

Scot problems [by Matt Baker] Shakespeare wrote for an aural audience; he doesn’t show, he tells. Accordingly, an actor’s vocal articulation is as an integral element of their performance as much as their understanding of the text. Fortunately, I know Macbeth as a text. I say fortunately, because had I not, I doubt I would have understood much of what […]

REVIEW: No Holds Bard (Royale Productions)

June 5, 2013

Hurst’s a Bardarse [by Sharu Delilkan] Aptly described as an outrageous and often profound look into one actor’s attempt at self-destruction, No Holds Bard definitely promises what it delivers…and more. This original compilation of numerous Shakespearean excerpts woven together from the likes of Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello is a great way to showcase Michael Hurst’s mastery of the […]

PREVIEW: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Auckland Theatre Company)

April 30, 2012

In Love with Shakespeare [by Sharu Delilkan] It has been a journey of self-discovery for Xavier Horan, particularly since he has gone from being a ‘Shakespeare-phobe’ to acting in two of his plays within a matter of months. Horan, who has recently performed at The Globe Theatre London in the ground breaking Maori production of Troilus and Cressida, is extremely […]

PREVIEW: Troilus and Cressida (Auckland Town Hall to The Globe Theatre)

April 6, 2012

Te be, or not te be? [by Sharu Delilkan] It has been a journey of a lifetime for Rachel House to direct the first Te Reo Maori version of William Shakespeare‘s historical masterpiece, Troilus and Cressida. Despite being one of the country’s foremost theatre practitioners and visionaries, House admits she was terrified, when she was first approached. “I knew this […]

REVIEW: Much Ado about Nothing (Summer Shakespeare)

March 10, 2012

Shakespeare does it again! [by James Wenley] Turns out that Much Ado about Nothing is actually much ado about quite a lot of things… In some ways a ‘greatest hits’ of Shakespeare’s devices, Much Ado’s comedy takes in bumbling authority figures, a disguised seduction, various tricks played on characters, a Shrew-like Battle of the Sexes… there’s even a sort of small boy […]

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