I attended this performance the day following BREXIT, which resulted in the United Kingdom from a nationwide vote (England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Gibraltar) taken on 23 June 2016, found London in the midst of a political, social …
The Southern Romanian city of Craiova is a survivor. It defied the social invasion that is industrialization, healed its wounds caused by the massive earthquake of 1977 and strangely, at a later moment, also freed itself from the paralyzing haze …
The Bregenzer Festspiele, one of several well-appointed summer opera festivals, is situated on the beautiful Lake Constance. It specializes in producing one opera outdoors on a floating stage (Seebühne), thereby creating a stunning backdrop while pleasing the masses with operas …
Where: The Oleg Tabakov Theatre…
Dorota Masłowska, considered by some to be already a classic, established herself as a prominent voice among the post-communist and post-dramatic playwrights in Poland through two famous theatre texts – A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians (2006) and No Matter …
Normally around this time of the year, I submit a review of the productions in the Recklinghausen theatre festival, whose theme this year was the Mediterranean. But given the current state of Germany as a whole (predominantly the question of …
The appropriation of Shakespeare by different nations, as well as the discussions about his works in various cultural contexts, lead to the emergence of unexpected interpretations of his plays and inspire creative experiments in the domain of theatre. As the …
When the conservative Fidesz party assumed power in 2010, Hungarian LGBTQ citizens had legitimate reasons for concern. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rode to victory on a platform that promised a better future for Hungary with a renewed focus on “work, …
One of the trickiest questions of modern Shakespeare studies, put forward by L.C. Knights and repeated by many scholars, is, ”How many children had Lady Macbeth?” As every Shakespearean knows, the scholarly answers to it had almost nothing to do …
The following is the review of a ballet in two acts based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest by the Dutch National Ballet.
World Premiere Choreography: Krzysztof Pastor
Video: Shirin Neshat in collaboration with Shoja Azari
Dramaturgy: Willem Bruls
Music: Henry Purcell, …
Founder and longtime artistic director of Kraków’s Teatr KTO, Jerzy Zoń, traces his choice of a life in theatre to a moment when—still a student—he sat in the audience, weeping, during the 1975 premiere performance of Tadeusz Kantor’s Dead Class: …
The 70th Avignon Festival (6–24 July) was an especially memorable celebration of the best in innovative international performing arts and dance. From Ivo van Hove’s Les Damnés to Krystian Lupa’s Place des héros, audiences were treated to a number …
The production Antoine et Cléopâtre by Thiago Rodrigues and his company Mundo Perfeito was created in 2015, and was presented (in Portuguese) at the Avignon Festival. It was again presented, but in French, at the Paris Autumn Festival 2016, at …
Given the very large number of active theatres in Germany, their extensive repertoire, and their strong interest in the classic Western theatre in general and Shakespeare in particular, it is doubtless safe to say that nowhere on earth is offering …
Viesturs Meikšāns (b. 1980) is one of the most interesting phenomena in Latvian theatre. He cannot be called an emerging director anymore, since his first decade in this profession is coming to an end; however, he has such an interesting …
The latest of Shakespeare’s plays to be staged at the Croatian National Theatre (CNT) in Osijek is The Merchant of Venice. Painfully contemporary in its theme and character motivation and at the same time humorous and smooth, The Merchant …
Flemish playwright Tom Lanoye has experience “overwriting” Shakespeare’s plays among other reworkings of classic works, first with a twelve-hour verse adaptation of eight of Shakespeare’s history plays entitled Ten Oorlog (To War) in 1997, then in 2014 with …
The Noorderzon Festival is an international performing arts festival that took place in Groningen (Netherlands) from 18 to 28 August 2016. It presented several surprising and interesting features. It is a small international festival of theatre innovation (in number around …
Jordi Galceran has proved to be one of Spain’s most commercially successful twenty-first century dramatists. His runaway hit, El método Gronholm (The Gronholm Method) by Sergi Belbel, was first staged at the Catalan National Theatre in 2003 …
The Kunstenfestivaldesarts, directed by Christophe Slagmuylder, is one of the most interesting festivals of theatre innovation in Europe. Among the thirty-five artistic projects presented this year, twenty-five were world premières. The Brussels-based festival presents many Belgian productions, justifying its local …
Now in its twenty-second year, the Berlin Theatertreffen, presenting ten outstanding productions from Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland, has become one of the major European theatre festivals, but with success has come some problems. Audiences have steadily grown, and although …
The 2016 Oslo International Festival was the biggest to date. Stretching over three weeks, the festival offered twenty works of theatre, dance, performance, and music as well as seminars and talkbacks. It was also the last for its creator and …
A Pessimistic Background for a Start
When I see the nth show on our stages that is interested mainly in itself, or in the current fashion, or in its perfect following of a certain aesthetics, or in quickly earned laughter …
Two weeks after the first appearance of his final production for Uppsala Stadsteater, I met with Linus Tunström to discuss his tenure as the theatre’s Intendant. When Tunström arrived in Uppsala in 2008, the theatre had not been known for …
The Latvian director Alvis Hermanis (b. 1965) had worked for approximately ten years when he “broke out” internationally by taking part in the Salzburg Festival’s Program for Young Directors with a staging of Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General, presented …
Croatia, the most recent addition to the European Union family, has a long-standing history both in theatre as well as in ballet and contemporary dance. To understand its current state and to appreciate contemporary works, it is useful to recall …
The Portuguese Association of Theatre Critics awarded its 2015 Prize to scene designer Cristina Reis, who devised a most creative and efficient set for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, produced by Teatro da Cornucópia. The production was directed by celebrated actor and …
The Fifth Dimension. This was the slogan of the fifth annual ACT Independent Theatre Festival, which took place from 19 November to 22 November 2015 in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. The festival was marked by the infectious nerve and …
During December 2015 Berlin was facing numerous socio-political situations that included the Syrian migration crisis, economic instability due to the decline of the Euro as well as internal political crises brought about by immigration, religious suffrage related to Islam, and …
Berlin’s varied theatre and performance scene is clearly one of the most vibrant and eclectic in the world. But, it has changed in many ways since the large-scale privatization of many formerly state funded theatres began in 2001. Several theatre …
What makes us human? What makes a person a person? Can an object ever attain those qualities? Can such qualities be learned, taught, formed? The German-British performance collective, Gob Squad, are not the first to ask these questions, as their …
In 2012, worldwide interest was aroused by the discovery of 1,280 pieces of art ranging from Monet to Picasso in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt. Ronald Harwood followed this exciting and surprising story and completed his play Degenerate Art…
We all know that Facebook is a global phenomenon and, one way or another, is influencing our daily lives, whether we like it or not. I know people who, for personal reasons, or just because they prefer to do something …
The fall of 2015 marked several major events in France that will not be soon forgotten. The tragedy of 15 November and the sudden passing of Swiss director Luc Bondy on 28 November left a sense of emptiness in both …
In the beginning was the Word.
In the beginning was—The Iliad.
These words can best sum up both the story and the scenic language of the remarkable performance Ilijada (The Iliad), a co-production of three …
London’s Royal Court Theatre has premiered nearly all of Caryl Churchill’s plays for more than four decades, and audience members who purchase programs there receive a bonus: a printed copy of the script. Readers who ventured beyond the production details …
The Almeida Theatre in London’s Islington has been running a season of Greek plays beginning with a rather mix-and-match Oresteia that later transferred to the West End. This was followed by Euripides’s Bakkhai, spelled thus by translator Anne Carson …
Federico García Lorca is best known for his rural trilogy—Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba, but it is The Public, written before these iconic works that Lorca was to see as his true …
