Merry Wives

Today's Merry Wives; a Timeless Falstaff

It plays like the premiere of a new reality series franchise. Merry Wives (of Harlem) stars Anne Page, Johnny Falstaff, and the merry wives, Madam Nkechi Ford and Madam Ekue Page, streaming now at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Hall in Washington, D.C. Sounds ridiculous? So is the play it's built on, William Shakespeare's The Merry Wive's of Windsor. As adaptations of Shakespeare’s works go, Jocelyn Bioh’s is one of the most thoroughly Shakespearean transfers to the 21st century I've seen of any of the Bard’s 16th century plays. A big reason: Shakespeare’s great comic creation, Sir John Falstaff, gets a thoroughly modern rendition in the performance of Jacob Ming-Trent, destined to be one of the most indelible Falstaff's romping through my memories to the end of my time on this earth. For the full review, click here.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Blackfriars Vet Brews Brilliant Circe’s Cup

Chris Johnston, always a great musician and evolving actor in the time I saw him in American Shakespeare Center productions at the Blackfriars Playhouse from 2011 to 2019, returned to the Blackfriars as director of William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors during this year’s spring season. In that role he helmed a production that proved to be every bit a reflection of the multitalented actor himself, delivering Shakespeare’s multidimensional text and crazier than crazy plot with juxtapositions of clowning and emotional breadth, slapstick and psychological depth, textual purity and meta magic. Provided a company of superior physical, textual, and character acting skills and musical talent, Johnston’s Blackfriars Playhouse directorial debut captured a decade of his own theatrical brilliance in two-hours traffic on the stage he had plied so well. For the full review, click here.

KING LEAR

A Grade A (Minus) King Lear

It's rare seeing so much joy—appreciation, yes; joy, no—after a performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear, especially after sobs floated through the Blackhouse Playhouse in Staunton, Viginia, just minutes before. This ovation, though, not only recognized the exquisite presentation of Shakespeare's richly drawn characters we had just seen; it also was visceral expression of what a member of the American Shakespeare Center's staff told me in the lobby before the show: "We're back!" For the full review, click here.

All the Devils are Here:
How Shakespeare Invented the Villain

Staring Into the True Face of Evil

A black chair sits in the corner of our basement. Made of wood with cushioned seat and back, it is starkly simple, narrow and tall. It looks like an ancient throne because it was, truly, Macbeth's throne; it even has knife slashes in the back cushion where Macbeth stabbed at his late best buddy, Banquo, tearing through his throne's vinyl cushion and cracking its wood frame. That's how much Patrick Page was into Macbeth when he played the titular part in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's 2004 production. That throne my wife and I purchased at a props and costumes sale is not the only connection I have with Page and Macbeth, as revealed in Page's one-actor show, All the Devils are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain. The subtitle for Page's own play is instructive to his 90-minute show's substance. In a tour de force repertoire of performances featuring a canon's worth of villains, Page demonstrates how Shakespeare turned a stock theatrical character into real people. People like us. For the complete review, click here.

King Lear

The Eyes Have It

Somewhere in this mess of a house I live in hides my folder for the 2023 Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of William Shakespeare's King Lear starring Patrick Page in the title role. The folder contains, most importantly, my notes from the two performances I attended at the Klein Theatre: on opening night, sitting about ten rows back and to the far left; and three weeks later in my season subscription seats in the center of the fourth row. I can't reasonably write a full review of the Simon Godwin-helmed production without those notes. Relying on my memory is bound to lead to inaccurate reporting. However, some moments of Page's performance are seared indelibly into my brain: first, a scene in which he played me; last, a scene in which he played my wife, Sarah, who has Alzheimer's and now resides in a memory care center; and between those, a scene in which he played both Sarah and me.For the full review, click here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
(Abridged) [Revised] (Again)

Completing Shakespeare’s
Complete Works At Last (Again)

You’ve not seen all of Shakespeare until you’ve seen the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. That’s a rule I’ve derived from the times I mention seeing a Shakespeare play and oh-so-subtly brag that I've seen all 42 plays connected to Shakespeare’s pen. The reply I inevitably get is, “Have you seen The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)?” referring to the winking, satirical spin on the Bard’s works by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Well, I’ve finally seen it, the Again version, at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, a venue perfect for such a semi-improvisational, audience-participation show. Furthermore, the cast comprised three of my favorite Shakespeareans. To read the full review, click here.

Shakespeare News

Epic Shakespeare's Histories Enterprise
Resurrected as You Tube Audio Production

Brave Spirits Theatre's ambitious staging of Shakespeare's eight-play War of the Roses history cycle—interrupted by Covid and the theater's subsequent closure—has been resurrected as an online audio production. Artistic Director Charlene V. Smith, who put years of creative effort into her Shakespeare's Histories enterprise, never gave up on bringing it to full fruition and created audio performances with much of the original casts. The productions will be streamed in 24 episodes for free on You Tube. For details, click here.

The Comedy of Errors

Pair of Deuces, 3 of Hearts Equals a Winning Hand

Dromio prances onto the stage and launches into a high-kicking, body-twisting, hand-raising, disco-flavored song and dance. They are soon joined by the entire cast for a full-on dance number to conclude the Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Foremost in my mind watching this finale is not the great production values of the show I'd just experienced, or the succinctly subtle acting choices across the talented ensemble, or the out-of-nowhere humor working in tandem with on-target Shakespearean verse readings. What I'm thinking is how the heck are Alex Brightman and David Fynn as, respectively, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus still standing, let alone singing while dancing, given what they've accomplished physically and endured choreographically over the past 2:10 hour's traffic on the stage with only a 15-minute rest for intermission? To read the full review, click here.

Venus and Adonis

An Elizabethan Peep Show

Taffety Punk Theatre Company is a small but brightly shining gem in the Washington, D.C., theater scene, a richly talented acting company displaying a brilliantly inventive willingness to explore conceptual stagings of William Shakespeare’s works. This includes those narrative poems at the back of your edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works. Having staged The Rape of Lucrece in 2012, they have now undertaken Venus and Adonis, which could well have been Elizabethan porn. The two narrators, Tonya Beckman and Lise Bruneau, gave Shakespeare's vividly descriptive verses a cheeky resonance. For the review, click here.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Putting On the Putin

When Joel Coen released The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2022, did he know he had filmed a biopic of Vladimir Putin? When Denzel Washington turned his calculating Macbeth into a regicidal despot in one pivotal scene, was he channeling the Russian dictator raging at Volodymyr Zelensky’s government? When William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606, did he have the war in Ukraine in mind? The first two questions, probably not, but I can definitively answer that last question. Shakespeare portrayed human nature in all its dimensions, dimensions that haven’t changed in 500 years. That’s the thrilling yet unsettling relevancy of Shakespeare’s composition emerging out of the darkness of Coen’s film. Even with textual cuts bringing his movie in at 108 minutes, Coen unpacks Macbeth’s universal truths in traditional and novel ways. For the complete review, click here.

Macbeth

War’s Tomorrow

Look at the face. As you walk through the door on your way to the theater, you pass a soldier—British, American, or from some other 2024 army—hanging out by a burned-out car. As you take in the whole battle-scarred landscape, be sure to look at the soldier’s face: a face we’ve seen in photographs from the American Civil War through two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and into Ukraine and Palestine. Minutes later you’ll see another such battle-weary soldier’s face, though one familiar to you not as a soldier but as one of the supreme Shakespeare actors of our time, Ralph Fiennes, playing Macbeth in the Shakespeare Theatre Company's production in Washington, D.C. Listen to that face as it takes you into his mental chambers where you will vividly see what is in the minds behind the faces from Antietam to Afghanistan. To continue reading this review, click here.