Category: theatre

“This autumn, for the first time in its history, the Royal Shakespeare Company is to collaborate with one of the country’s leading puppet theatres to present a marionette masque version of Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare’s great, sensual poem… Over the past three months the puppets have been crafted in secret by experts from the Czech Republic, Germany and South Africa inside the Islington workshops of the puppet theatre. The miniature costumes are still being sewn together in the wardrobe department at Stratford-upon-Avon.”

“Whatever the critics make of it, David Hare’s Stuff Happens is undeniably one of the cultural events of the year – a remarkable dramatisation of the events that led to the war in Iraq.” The critics, as it happens, have been finding the play overly simplistic and too willing to slosh around in “gray areas.” But to the politicians, weapons inspectors, and other political insiders who lived through the runup to war that Hare has dramatized, Stuff Happens is a powerful reenactment of a divisive year in global relations, “the thinking person’s Fahrenheit 9/11: much more sophisticated, but just as angry.”

Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, the country’s national theatre, is laying off a third of its staff. “The managing director of the Abbey, Brian Jackson, today said that the theatre cannot go on losing in the region of €800,000 a year, and that the company has taken steps to address what he has termed fundamental structural issues.”

At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nicholas Kristof ponders what Shakespeare would tell the Republican National Convention and President George W. Bush. “The paramount lesson in Shakespeare’s plays is that the world is full of nuances and uncertainties, and that leaders self-destruct when they are too rigid, too sure of themselves or – Mr. President, lend me your ears – too intoxicated by moral clarity.”

“A disagreement at the Avignon festival has led to the departure of one of its founding fathers, the actor Alain Leonard. His resignation comes after a rift between his not-for-profit organisation, Avignon Public Off (APO) and Association de Lieux de Festival en Avignon (Alfa), a rival organisation set up last summer by the directors of 40 of the fringe venues.”

Ireland’s Abbey Theatre – the national theatre – is facing a funding crisis, and is taking measures to downsize. “The Abbey employs more than 100 people, many of whom work on a fixed-contract basis. Sources close to the theatre say the literary department is likely to face the brunt of cutbacks with some of its functions transferring to the artistic director, Mr Ben Barnes.”

“Broadway’s biz went into the Dumper on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Twenty-six shows brought in a trampled $12,595,294, down $1,751,057, 12.21%, from the previous lackluster session. Paid attendance came to 190,370, which is off about 35,000 from the bumper August of 2002.”

The edinburgh Fringe has another record year. But is the festival getting too big? “Fringe officials said that for the second time in a row, ticket sales had exceeded £1m and were 13% up on last year. For the first time in its history every one of the 1,695 fringe shows had sold a ticket before the festival began on August 8. Some venues saw ticket sales jump by almost 40%. With 1.25m tickets sold for 25,326 performances, the 2004 fringe exceeded last year’s record takings, but many venues reported business tailing off sharply in the last week.”

In New York, protesters clashed with police outside Broadway shows. “As convention delegates emerged from theaters last night, they were greeted by hundreds of protesters booing and chanting ‘RNC go home!’ In front of the New Amsterdam Theater, where delegates attended “The Lion King,” and at the Ford Center, where they watched ’42nd Street,’ police cleared paths for the visitors to rush to waiting buses.”

Chicago stages are filling up with political commentary. “Not since the Vietnam War has the local artistic community been able to galvanize its forces to produce such a wide array of politically charged programming. In the decades that followed Vietnam, much of the local theater community was slow in creating memorable responses to current events. Now it seems things have reached a political boiling point once again, with playwrights and theaters intent on sending a message.”