items tagged with William Shakespeare

For our third-annual conversation on the Year in Theatre, Thom White – the Reader’s chief theatre reviewer – and I thought we’d shake things up a bit. So instead of meeting for an hours-long breakfast to discuss the area stage scene, we met for an hours-long dinner to discuss the area stage scene.

And while I managed to keep things lively by spilling a completely full glass of water not 10 minutes after sitting down, we also managed to touch on many of the varied experiences that Thom (occasionally accompanied by his partner’s daughter Madison) and/or I had during another eventful year for fans of the theatre. Pack a lunch, sit back, and dive in ... .

During Thursday's presentation, actor James Thames seemed out of place in Scott Community College's The Actor’s Nightmare, acting like he was acting, offering a limited range of emotions and inflections, and speaking with a note of desperation in his tone. However, his amateurish performance, whether by design or not, actually proved spot-on for this comedy in which a non-actor finds himself forced to perform roles in four plays with no prior rehearsals.

Three hours goes by quite quickly during Genesius Guild’s well-paced, oftentimes hilarious production of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. While the piece is considered a “problem play,” as the script defies the expectations of a traditional comedy, director Jeff Coussens highlights the work’s ample amounts of humor, particularly in the production's first half. And with Coussens and his cast punching up every punchline through inflection and a sort of “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” attitude, I ended up laughing harder at Saturday's presentation, I believe, than I’ve ever laughed while watching a Shakespeare performance.

Many cast members in the Prenzie Players’ current offering, Titus Andronicus, are at their best expressing physical and emotional pain. There’s Aaron E. Sullivan’s shift from utter despair to cackling insanity as the title character, Catie Osborn’s post-rape brokenness as his daughter Lavinia, and Jessica White’s shrieks as she watches her character’s son slaughtered. The desperation is so penetrating in its realism and sincerity that I was often uncomfortable during Friday night’s performance – which is to say that the production is shockingly effective at delivering the darkness of Shakespeare’s work. I walked away in awe.

The Reader's chief theatre reviewer, Thom White, saw and wrote about 52 area stage productions in 2011. I saw 39 and reviewed 12. Obviously, during our second-annual breakfast chat on the Year in Theatre, there was a bit to talk about.