Category: theatre

Over the last few months, it has been interesting to watch how theatre navigates what, in many cases, is largely new territory: digital space. What began as a free-for-all, with organisations throwing anything they could online, has started to develop into something more interesting, as theatres and companies grapple with questions around the creative possibilities and also how to monetise them, so that artists and organisations have income. – The Stage

Elif Batuman on watching Theater of War’s online production of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King: “You’ve never really seen Oedipus, I found myself thinking, till you’ve seen it during a plague. The plague hadn’t really stood out to me on previous readings, yet it was the key to everything. … No matter how many times you see it pulled off, the magic trick is always a surprise: how a text that is hundreds or thousands of years old turns out to be about the thing that’s happening to you, however modern and unprecedented you thought it was.” – The New Yorker

Laura Cappelle, a thoroughly bilingual arts journalist and a trained sociologist, looks at the assumptions made and misunderstood by both Ruth Mackenzie and the officials who hired and then fired her. – The New York Times

The Shakespeare system is not simply Shakespeare’s written work, but the complex and oppressive role his work, legacy, and positionality hold in our contemporary society. Feeling defensive yet? – Howlround

As protests against the latest rigged election of Alexander Lukashenko continue to rock the former Soviet state, “will the theatre, which has won increasing acclaim on tours abroad but puts on plays in a garage when in Minsk, finally be performing in a new, democratic Belarus? Or will Lukashenko launch a fresh crackdown that makes things even more unbearable for the arts?” – The Guardian

“[Ruth] Mackenzie was sitting in her office when she learned to her astonishment that she had been sacked for ‘bullying’. She was even more shocked, when [general director Thomas] Lauriot dit Prévost, with whom she shared an office, insisted she leave immediately.” – The Guardian

The theater in Stratford, Connecticut, modeled on Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London, burned down in January 2019 as the result of arson. The theater building had not hosted an indoor performance in decades, though the surrounding lawn has continued to be sacred ground for Shakespeare fans, with performances by a summertime Shakespeare Academy and local outdoor Shakespeare troupes as well as community festivals. – Hartford Courant

Truly, one more discussion? As a Gen-Xer might say, big whoop. Here’s a list of action points for when theatre resumes – or to work on right now. – American Theatre

Ruth Mackenzie was the first woman to run the Théâtre du Châtelet, the first woman to hire a Black artist to direct a play at the French theatre, and also, she says, the first woman director fired for unsubstantiated accusations of bullying. Of an inquiry’s final report, Mackenzie says: “It says some rude things about me. … It says I don’t speak French very well, and it says some people in the theater found it culturally hard to adjust to my vision. But it could not prove bullying. Nonetheless, they have fired me, citing bullying.” – The New York Times

This may not be easy, and a lot of theatre artists may not want to think about it – but a Google Doc can help. “If there’s an instance where the word ‘slave’ does harm and the word ‘knave’ doesn’t, I think you can change it. I don’t know if that word did harm to Shakespeare’s audiences, but it can to ours. In an instance like that, I believe that making a substitution is actually closer to honoring Shakespeare’s original intention.” – Howlround