While it’s true that William Shakespeare’s history plays don’t receive as much modern attention as his comedies and tragedies, his ability to dramatise the lives of British rulers garnered the playwright much praise in his day. In Henry IV Part 1 & 2, the expected wit and politics of Shakespeare’s writing is only amplified by real royalty and warfare.
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Reduced Shakespeare Company have made quite a name for themselves by reducing enormous works of theatre and literature into short and witty stage plays. After the success of Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) the company added to their repertoire William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged).
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After the year we had in 2020, we could all use a bit of a laugh. Cue one of the oldest comedy writers out there with the classic tale of love, deception, mistaken identities, and twins! But, this time, with a twist.
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Macbeth has been done live and it’s been done digitally, but for the COVID-19 world, Barestage Theatre combines the two forms for a techno-punk rendition of the fall of the Scottish king. Performed live and streamed straight to your home, Macbeth: the Installation traverses boundaries of intimacy and performance.
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The year 2020 has taught us nothing if not how painful the passing of time can be. James Hartley’s surprisingly prescient 2016 play This Modern Coil is a rumination on fate, free will, fear, and the power of imagination as two soldiers await something, anything, in no man’s land.
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After a successful run of streamed stage readings including Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and The Winter’s Tale, Streamed Shakespeare have put together a fully-fledged online rendition of The Merchant of Venice for your pandemic pleasure. With the nearly 20-strong cast and crew zoomed straight to your screen, the audience becomes a fly on the wall to the deals and betrayals of 16th century Venice.
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In response to the closure of theatres across Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of Sydney-based actors have been performing staged readings of Shakespeare’s plays for online streaming every week of the nation-wide lockdown. For this week (approximately week 19 since the pandemic broke in Australia), the Streamed Shakespeare team bring Titus Andronicus to a screen near you.
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Image by Seiya Taguchi
Like the topsy-turvy celebrations of the Twelfth Night in Christian tradition, in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night nothing is as it appears. A pair of separated twins reunited, a series of misdirected affections and declarations of love, and a fool apparently in control of it all make up this jumbled comedy.
Image by Graeme Dobbs
He’s the biggest name in theatre and one of the biggest in literature. Nearly everyone who went to an English-speaking school studied him and many more who didn’t. To celebrate the opening of the 25th anniversary season for Lane Cove Theatre Company, William Shakespeare’s work takes pride of place with his 37 attributed plays and a sonnet or two.
Image by Noni Carroll
Enemy cities, a tragic shipwreck, two sets of twins separated indefinitely: so goes Shakespeare’s farce A Comedy of Errors. In Hilary Bell’s adaptation for the National Theatre of Parramatta, the story retains all the instances of mistaken identity, unfulfilled plans, wrongful arrests, and a near execution while injecting a bit of Western Sydney flair.
