In Memoriam: Carol Adele Kelly. 1931-2024
A Love of Words, Words, Words
My tribute to Carol Kelly, Shakespeareances.com's copy editor since the website's inception in 2011, became an in memoriam this morning, April 7, 2024. Carol was 93 years old. Cause of death was gall bladder cancer. Upon learning of her prognosis in February, I visited her in Cincinnati, Ohio, and wrote this tribute to my teammate, an outstanding grammarian, a good comrade, a special mother, a most-loved grandmother, and a constant inspiration for me the past 18 years—ever since I tried to fire her. For the full tribute, click here.
Pericles
A Quadruple-Quality Life
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players," William Shakespeare wrote in his play As You Like It. "And one man in his time plays many parts”— parts meaning roles, which, theatrically, are individual persons. Turn that conceit around, and you could say many parts make up one man. As we grow older, our individual selves combine to create an increasingly complex but unified whole self that is greater than the sum of its parts. Shakespeare addresses this redirection with his late-career play Pericles. At least, that’s the metaphor Fiasco Theater teases out of this much-maligned play in their fascinating production at Classic Stage Company in which four men each play one part of Pericles. To read the full review, click here.
Desperate Measures
Riffing on a Problem Play's Problems
Desperate Measures, Peter Kellogg's and David Friedman's M-rated Disneyesque musical comedy set in the 19th century American West, is "inspired by"—but not an adaptation of—William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Important distinction. Yet their work, while using rhyming couplets for its spoken script, makes its most significant contribution to Bardology by virtue of just six lines in Shakespeare's play through which their "inspired by" gushes. That premise may merely be highfalutin Shakesgeek navel-gazing though, as the musical is fun in itself with its uniquely rich characters, clever humor, and catchy tunes that Constellation Theatre Company delivers in a well-acted, well-sung production at the Source Theatre in Washington, D.C.To read the full review, click here.
A Commedia Romeo and Juliet
Fools Revisit a Landmark Production
One of my great rewards doing Shakespeareances has been experiencing the connection between William Shakespeare and commedia dell’arte, the masked and hyperphysical street theater tradition that originated in early 16th century Italy. I owe this discovery to the Washington, D.C., Faction of Fools, theater company and their landmark 2012 production of A Commedia Romeo and Juliet. The images of that production have romped through my memory ever since and returned in present flesh as Faction of Fools remounted the show at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in January. With some script adjustments and two casts, it's a twin bill with threefold delights. For the complete review, click here.
My Ever-Ending Hiatus
It’s Time
"We must keep moving. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving." Martin Luther King Jr. said this in 1960, a month before I turned two. Yesterday, his words came to me when I stalled on making a decision I thought I was ready for. It gave me the push I needed. Fitting, for I honor the national holiday commemorating his birthday by engaging in some form of public service. It's the right time to announce that Shakespeareances.com is officially coming out of a nearly four-year hiatus and back to full operational status. For my formal statement, the hiatus history, and my plans going forward, click here.
On Stage: As You Like It
A Magical Mystical Tour de Force
Blasphemous, some might call what Daryl Cloran has done to William Shakespeare's As You Like It, blending it with 23 classic Beatles songs. Brilliant, I say. Though it is not totally textually Shakespeare’s As You Like It, it is enriched Shakespeare metaphorically in the way it combines the Fab Four of Liverpool’s compositions with the Swan of Avon’s text. Nor is this an academic appreciation of two great artistic forces blended into one. This Bard on the Beach production, now running at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Hall in Washington, D.C., is a two-hour, 40-minute (including preshow) laugh-in with great singing, dancing, and wrestling, too. Not often you get an Orlando whose talents combine Shakespeare, Paul McCartney, Gene Kelly, Ann Margaret, and Cactus Jack in one performance. For the complete review, click here.
And for a summary of the Beatles songbook used for the play, click here.
In Print: Cutting Plays for Performance:
Cutting Up
Cutting plays is a foundational practice in theater, especially with the scripts of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. With their book Cutting Plays for Performance, Toby Malone and Aili Huber pull the curtain on that practice. In addition to explaining the many purposes and parameters for making cuts, they offer practical tips and anecdotal experience for new hands at what is a daunting and can be a dangerous task. For the complete review, click here.
On Stage: The Winter's Tale
Shaking Booty and Hearing Voices
There’s a lot of Bohemian booty shaking at the Folger. That is the lasting impression of the Tamilla Woodard-directed production of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale—perhaps unfortunate, depending on your theatrical tastes and tolerance for booty-shaking. I’m wide open on my theatrical tastes and indifferent to booties that shake, but Bohemia is not where this play ends. Besides, it was the production’s first impression that spoke more profoundly to me—spoke being a literal term, for I've been hearing voices lately, too. For the full review, click here.
On Stage: Shakespeare Everywhere Festival
12 Washington D.C. Institutions Stage
23 Shakespearean Productions and Events
World-class productions, fascinating debates, amazing opportunities to get behind the scenes, and all on your doorstep. This fall in Washington, Shakespeare will truly be everywhere. Shakespeareances is covering the event in (almost) its entirety. For a list of productions and other events, click here.
On Stage: Evita
A Rice-Webber "History" Play
How many earworms can you stand? I drove home from Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of the Tim Rice–Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita with “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” playing on a loop in my mind. Each day thereafter, a different earworm: “High Flying, Adored,”“And the Money Kept Rolling In,”“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,”“A New Argentina,” and even “On This Night of a Thousand Stars”—yep, a deliberately cheesy song can be an indelible moment in Evita. This production of the Rice-Webber masterpiece is loaded with indelible moments, from its musical compositions and performances to its perspective, which director Sammi Cannold has wrested from its white Anglo male creators and mixed in a woman’s worldview and Argentinian authenticity. But how authentic is the portrayal of Eva Perón nee Eva Duarte? For that, we turn to Shakespeare's Henry V nee Prince Hal. For the complete review, click here.
On Stage: A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Beach Town Makes Shakespeare
The Ultimate Community Theater
A new theater company called Shakespeare on the Beach set out to bring Shakespeare to New York City's Rockaway Beach. But life began imitating the very art it was presenting as external conditions and internal catastrophes threatened to turn the production into a most lamentable comedy on a scale that the rude mechanicals would slink away from. But magic happened on opening night—which ended up being closing night, too—and we not only have a tale of perseverance but a case study in how to bring Shakespeare into the community by bringing the community into the Shakespeare. This is a long one, folks, but, whoa! what a night, which you can experience by clicking here.
Reader Comment added September 2, 2023.
On Stage: The Taming of the shrew
Two Outcasts Cast Their Lots
With Each Other
It is my long-stated opinion that William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has always been and is still a love story. Now, here is a production at the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse that fully plays it that way, but with advantages. That’s thanks to director José Zayas and his two lead actors who turn textual nuggets into a viable, relatable story arc for Katherina and Petruchio. For the complete review, click here.
On Stage: Much Ado About Nothing
It's a Musical (No Kidding)
Northern Virginia’s Shakespeare Opera Theater has evolved since its founding in 2015, from pairing productions of a William Shakespeare play and its operatic off-shoot to single productions mashing the two art forms together. This year, the company demonstrates how its mashup concept has come full circle: it’s revisiting the two iterations of Much Ado About Nothing the company paired in its debut season but as one unified piece of work. The result is a singular dramatic experience, which we’ll call a musical, with music and lyrics by Hector Berlioz and book by William Shakespeare. For the complete review, click here.
On Stage: Romeo and juliet
Real Lives, Real Love, Real Tragedy
As I continue crawling toward Shakespeareances.com's resurrection with new design, organization, and content, I'm revisiting my favorite Shakespeareance of 2022: Romeo and Juliet at the Blackfriars Playhouse. In this American Shakespeare Center production, we have soaked in the glow of initial infatuation as Meg Rodgers’s Juliet and Brandon Carter’s Romeo, unable to touch, gaze at each other, their eyes embracing long and longingly because parting really is such sweet sorrow. We endured their relentless march to destruction. We were spent. Yet, Juliet had one more so-Juliet gesture left in her. I, a 64-year-old man watching my 39th production of this play, had never before felt so devastated at its ending. This Romeo and Juliet was so real, so us, because it was so fully grounded in Shakespeare’s script under the direction of José Zayas. To read the review, click here.
And a bonus!
Dialogue: An Interview with a Euphoric Juliet
Where Under-the-Skin Happens
On that visit to Staunton in April 2022, I interviewed Meg Rodgers. What was scheduled to be a half-hour interview sprinted on for almost an hour as we delved into Juliet's life and fate, director José Zayas' approach to the play's matrix of social and individual choices and their consequences, and our own experiences with depression and crushes.
For the full interview, click here.
Commentary: Henry V’s Vietnam War
A True Band of Brothers and Sisters
Shakespeareances.com, which has been on hiatus as my wife, Sarah, slides into the last stages of Alzheimer’s, is nearing its return with a fully redsigned site. Meanwhile, for the past year, I’ve been working for the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration in the Department of Defense, which staged “Welcome Home! A Nation Honors our Vietnam Veterans and their Families” on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., May 11-13. My job was to design, build, and manage the centerpiece of that event, Camp Legacy, featuring 96 exhibitors with historical displays, Veterans services, oral history centers, a photo gallery, a cinema (in a tent), rally points for veterans and families to gather, musical performances, and panel discussions. As the event approached, I was appointed Mayor of Camp Legacy in charge of running the operations. Throughout it all, I wondered if Shakespeare had anything to say about this gig?
Of course he did. For the full essay, click here.
