This is Measure For Measure in a production by RSC supremo Greg Doran and set in turn of the 20th century Vienna. It is and remains a difficult play to pin down but the contemporary resonances remain inescapable.
‘Endlessly fascinating’: MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Barbican Theatre
Gregory Doran’s RSC production of Measure for Measure is a subtle and absorbing account of a play that gets weirder with every viewing.
‘Adeptly traverses the conflicting genres of the original problem play’: MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Touring ★★★★
Intertwining ribald comedy with a morality tale is no easy feat, yet an outstanding cast and creative team reinforce this thought-provoking and immersive experience of Measure for Measure for all to enjoy.
‘Timely & riveting adaptation’: MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon ★★★★
Gregory Doran’s timely and riveting adaptation of Measure for Measure is filled with laugh-out-loud humour, but there is also a bleaker side to it that makes it very much a play for today.
‘It’s all done superbly’: MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon ★★★★★
What Gregory Doran frames most brilliantly in Measure For Measure at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon is the is the central confusion of morality.
‘A new kind of Shakespearean tragedy’: OTHELLOMACBETH – Lyric Hammersmith ★★★★
Director Jude Christian’s othellomacbeth, two-for-one offer on Shakespearean tragedies at the Lyric Hammersmith, sounds like a bad idea. Crammed into two and half hours, there’s too much material and too little time. And yet, somehow, they manage to pull it off.
‘We may need a bit more nourishment’: OTHELLOMACBETH – Lyric Hammersmith ★★★
Plays for poor theatre: in Brexit Britain, once we’re reduced to eating rats whilst clutching our blue passports, a Shakespeare mashup may seem like a doubly good idea – patriotic and economical. Like May’s Brexit, Othellomacbeth still needs a bit of work.
‘Tragedy goes hand-in-hand with farce’: PITY – Royal Court Theatre
Now, on the main stage at the Royal Court Theatre, Rory Mullarkey’s leftfield fantasy, Pity, offers a surreal state-of-the-world account of our society, and of its discombobulations.
‘It’s all so relentless and random’: PITY – Royal Court Theatre
As strong as the cast is (Abraham Popoola and Siobhán McSweeney stand out), the hyperactive knowing style in which they deliver Pity also grates.
CHARLIE SONATA – Edinburgh
Three friends from university in the 1990s occasionally stage reunions that show how two of them – Gary and Jackson – have moved on to careers and respectability (or something approximating to them), while Chick remains a drifting figure, wedded to alcohol.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS – RSC, Barbican Theatre
Two actors share the roles of scholar and tempter in a pacy production that brilliantly conveys joy in transgression.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS – RSC, Barbican Centre
It’s a rare feeling to sit in the audience for a play and feel you truly don’t know what to expect – in the age of social media, it’s impossible not to have a good idea what to expect, but when two men walk onto the stage at the beginning of Faustus, stare each other in the eye and light a match cast, crew and audience will all find out together who will take the titular role.
NEWS: Lyceum Waiting for Godot leads Scottish theatre awards
Wait ends for Godot at CATS: The Lyceum’s production of Waiting for Godot has won the Best Production award at this year’s Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland.
DR FAUSTUS – RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon
Much of what makes The RSC great is embodied in Maria Aberg’s Doctor Faustus, now playing in Stratford’s Swan Theatre. A classic Elizabethan text that is given an invigorating and challenging interpretation and presented in a display of top-notch stagecraft. For students of modern theatre, Aberg’s show should be compulsory viewing.
LANARK – Edinburgh Fringe
✭✭✭✭✩ The unstageable, staged:
A world of hugely entertaining possibilities is on display in Lanark. The co-production between the Citizens Theatre and the International Festival has all of the excitement and weight of a capital-letter Theatre Event.