Criticultura em Portugal

The Two Noble Kinsmen Written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher Translated by Tim Slover Directed by April Cleveland Starring Fernando Gonzalez, Ben Quinn, and Terry Weagant Play On! Festival Classic Stage Company, Manhattan June 30, 2019 The Two Noble Kinsmen is a drama-comedy written jointly by William Shakespeare and his successor at the King’s Men playhouse, John Fletcher (1579-1625). Its date of 1613-14 makes it the likely last play of the Bard, and came 2-3 years before his death in Stratford. The excellent translation by Tim Slover, a playwright and professor at the University of Utah, brought out the wit and cleverness of the plot, a version of Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales , with a few comic subplots tossed in. It was a highly entertaining two hours, and made me feel like I was at a bawdy entertainment with the crowd in London. Mr. Slover discussed his translation process afterwards. Rather than just going line by line, he first did ...

Henry VIII Written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher Translated by Caridad Svich Directed by Adrian Alexander Alea Starring Anthony Cochrane and Pun Bandhu Play On! Festival Classic Stage Company, Manhattan June 29, 2019 Henry VIII (1613) was one of Shakespeare’s last plays, and was a collaboration with John Fletcher (1579-1625), who succeeded him as house playwright for the King’s Men and wrote popular plays often termed “tragicomedies”. These are perhaps best thought of as hybrid dramas involving high and low comedy, history, and romantic couplings both serious and comic. Henry VIII is an example of this form, and another example of how a Shakespearean “history play” could be many things, ranging from classically tragic like Richard III to largely comic like Henry IV Part 1 (with Falstaff, et. al.). Henry VIII , written a couple years before Shakespeare’s death in 1616, is an odd mix of comedy, pageantry, courtroom drama, and the historical of Henry’s efforts to div...

Kiss Me, Kate Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter Book by Bella and Samuel Spewack Directed by Scott Ellis Starring Kelli O’Hara Studio 54 June 25, 2019 The only reason Kiss Me, Kate (1949) is no longer revived much by major theater companies is its problematic man-woman power relationships, which now seem dated and a little offensive in the era of the #MeToo movement. Cole Porter’s ingenious musical fuses a backstage plot involving romantic and sexual tension between two actor ex-spouses with their play-in-a-play musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Both plots climax to scenes demonstrating woman’s acquiescence to men, while acknowledging that both sexes are flawed. In Shakespeare, the independently unmanageable Kate eventually famously places her hand under her husband’s boot (after his emotional abuse and manipulation), and in the backstage musical Lilli reunites with and submits to her shallow ex-husband. This is awkward in 2019. The plot resoluti...

Timon of Athens By William Shakespeare Translation by Kenneth Cavander Directed by Andy Wolk Starring Anthony Cochrane Play On! Festival Classic Stage Company, Manhattan June 22, 2019 King Lear By William Shakespeare Translation by Marcus Gardley Directed by Ian Belknap Starring John Glover Play On! Festival Classic Stage Company, Manhattan June 22, 2019 On a recent Saturday in the Village, I saw another installment of the Play On! Festival, which is now midway in presenting dramatized readings of all the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Each play has been “translated” by a writer, dramaturge or actor, trying to keep as much of the original text as possible. These are not modern updates, but translations, eliminating not just thee’s and thou’s, but also the cryptic allusions or topical references lost on modern audiences. To author Kenneth Cavender, who translated Timon , “I don’t think Shakespeare needs to be translated in a word-for-word rendering — but as ...