Theater of War Productions is one of the most exciting companies in the performance of ancient Greek and Shakespearean plays because they tie each performance to a particular social issue and use the performances as a jumping off point for discussions of the issue. Their recent version of Sophocles’ The Women of Trachis was performed …
Tag: Adaptation
Sonnetfest ’21: 4th Annual Shakespeare on the Bluff Festival—23 July 2021
Sonnetfest ’21, directed by Kevin Wetmore, introduced Shakespeare’s sonnets as fourteen-line plays, and that promise was borne out. The performance consists of several sonnets read (not in numerical order) and acted out by Loyola Marymount University’s College of Communications and Fine Arts. I watched the final performance, which was streamed over YouTube-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsHyQUA0hK0 (this link …
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Antigone in Ferguson, by Theater of War Productions–9 Aug. 2020
Theater of War’s Antigone in Ferguson adapts the Sophocles play in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and its specific history in Ferguson, MO following the murder of Michael Brown by police in 2014. Organized and run by members of the Ferguson community working with professional actors and singers from New York and …
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The Duchess (of Malfi), by Zinnie Harris–28 May 2019
The Duchess of Malfi was originally a Jacobean play by John Webster—one of the best early modern plays, in my opinion. But what Zinnie Harris has done with her new version is amazing. She has kept the dark, violent, misogynistic themes of the original, but updated it to feel fresh, contemporary, and even (perhaps surprisingly) …
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The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, Adapted by Sterling Sax–2 July 2018
Few modern plays are more widely known, read, or performed than Oscar Wilde’s comedic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. Premiering in 1895, I believe it was the most performed comedy of the 20th century. Given that repute, it is a daunting task to adapt the play, as Sterling Sax did for Nittany Theatre at …
Argonautika, by Mary Zimmerman–30 Oct. 2017
Mary Zimmerman’s Argonautika straddles a number of boundaries—between ancient epic and modern drama, between comedy and tragedy, between poetry and theatre. Following the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, this modern adaptation based on the tale recounted in the Greek by Apollonius and in the Latin by Gaius Valerius Flaccus. But this is certainly no …
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The Trojan Women, by Euripides (adapted by Gwendolyn MacEwen)–6 Dec. 2016
Euripides’ The Trojan Women is widely regarded as one of the greatest anti-war plays of all time, and it seems unfortunately timely today. With wars raging in the Middle East, and with the largest refugee crisis since WWII is Syria, Euripides’ lamentation reaches across the millennia to admonish us to this day. This transhistorical element …
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Stupid Fucking Bird, by Aaron Posner–5 Dec. 2015
As someone who studies adaptation, I was excited to see a production of Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird, which reworks Chekhov’s The Seagull. Posner’s play regularly draws attention to itself as an adaptation, specifically in the Russian dramatic tradition, and attempts to metatheatrically engage spectators in issues of narrative construction, expectations, and generic norms. In …
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Phillip Zapkin 