With the closing of the Pearl, the stakes have been raised for Theatre for a New Audience, our last, best hope for classical revival in New York City. Their new production of Measure for Measure is a fairly good sign. As we enter the theater, we are encouraged to stroll through Mistress Overdone’s brothel: through glass, […]
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Election seasons are common times to stage Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s play about a Roman war hero (Dion Johnstone) who runs for consul despite his contempt for the common people. Unversed in political matters, Coriolanus is undone by his rivals Brutus (Merritt Janson) and Sicinius (Stephen Spinella) and decides to ally himself with his former enemy, the Volscian commander Tullus […]
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What are we to make of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (John Douglas Thompson), the Scythian shepherd-turned-emperor who spends most of this two-part play committing mass murder without any hint of guilt or self-doubt? He resembles later theatrical incarnations of political evil, like Shakespeare’s Richard III and Macbeth, but no ghosts of victims come back to haunt him, no authorial […]
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