Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is, perhaps surprisingly for people who don’t know the play, not really about Caesar, it’s about Brutus and his struggle with the decision to be drawn into the conspiracy to murder the increasingly imperial Caesar in the hopes of restoring a free Roman Republic. And then once the murder is committed, he …
Continue reading Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare–2 Nov. 2019
*For full disclosure, I worked as dramaturg for this production* Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons is a complex, philosophical play grounded in history, theology, philosophy, ethics, and existentialism. But it’s one of the best plays of the 20th century. Bolt’s play is dynamic and challenging, raising issues that are not only relevant for …
Continue reading A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt–8 Aug. 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) …
Continue reading The Duchess (of Malfi), by Zinnie Harris–28 May 2019
When going to see a theatre production at a college theatre you’ve never been to before, you never know what you’re going to get. College theatre is of notoriously varied quality. Which is why I was so pleased with Juniata College’s production of Antigone, directed by Leigh Hendrix. While there were some performance limitations, the …
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 …
Continue reading The Trojan Women, by Euripides (adapted by Gwendolyn MacEwen)–6 Dec. 2016
This is the fourth, maybe fifth show I’ve seen the Rustic Mechanicals perform, and this is the first one I would say was really good. My major critique of the Mechanicals has been the tendency to painfully overact, but with this cast and for this show, they (largely) resisted that tendency. For the first time …
Continue reading The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare–9 Oct. 2016
As everyone knows, Romeo & Juliet is the greatest love story ever told. Officially. Of course, the reality of the play is slightly less romantic and more teen suicide-y, but such is life. Or death, in Romeo and Juliet’s case. One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Romeo & Juliet tells the story of two young …
Continue reading Romeo & Juliet, by William Shakespeare–17 July 2016
Phillip Zapkin 