shakespeare
Extremely imaginative Master and Margarita gets cheering reception on #HF12
Shakespeare had it, Oscar savage had it, Monty Python had it and Simon McBurney has trucks full of it. So it is British and it is called humour, or rather the ability to show the absurdity of life as simultaneously hilarious and deeply tragic. And let that also apply to Russian Mikhail Bulgakov. So his unfinished novel The Master and Margarita has now had to wait almost 75 years for a director like Simon McBurney to turn it into theatre.
'I have all of Shakespeare's records in my cupboard'
The press presentation of the open-air opera Orfeo ed Eurydice at Soestdijk at the time attracted just under a hundred people press and sponsors. At the presentation of the performance 'Much ado about nothing', The Utrecht Games attracted only a handful: someone from weblog cultuurpodium.nl, two people from the Stadsblad Utrecht and an indeterminate camera crew who had come exclusively for Suzan Visser....
Blood-soaked Macbeth fits festival theme perfectly but fails to touch #HF12
Imagine Arjan Robben. The much-troubled frontman of the Dutch national team has just seen a brilliant move rewarded with a penalty and he is ready to take it. Up comes a field hand with a new set of adhesive letters for his shirt because the numbers are no longer legible from the stands. Lots of lashing, shirt off, seconds glue. Circumstances, in short. After two minutes, the fielder is gone, the number readable and the referee's whistle sounds. Then try to hit the target.
In the wonderfully subtle The Speaker's Progress, Shakespeare's farce suddenly becomes a revolutionary weapon #hf12
Tight-lipped. Freshly cut. And with a beatific, apt voice, The Speaker - played by director Sulayman Al-Bassam - looks like a slick public relations man. Or better: a civilised Arab dictator with an Oxford degree. One of those who is supported by the West and deeply hated by his own people. He steps behind a lectern and narrates. Once upon a time,...
Survive the carnage, smeared nudity and frenzied screams in Requiem 3, and note the moving lyrics #hf12
Vincent Macaigne strikes me as a director you shouldn't fight with. Right from the first seconds of Requiem 3, he rams full steam ahead with the most hysterical opening scene I have seen in ages, and keeps on hacking relentlessly for 80 minutes. It takes a while to get through. But suddenly, in this tsunami of...
Awards for Dutch Chewboy
Tegen het eind van deze Berlinale kon men in de wandelgangen vernemen dat het Deense kostuumstuk A Royal Affair over een in de kiem gesmoorde revolutie vast en zeker de Gouden Beer ging winnen. De jury heeft zich daar echter niets van aangetrokken en wees Caesar Must Die van de gebroeders Taviani als beste film aan. Caesar Must Die (foto:…
Berlin 2012 - Shakespeare knew it all
Would today's revolution makers even study Shakespeare? In Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die), the competition entry by the Italian Taviani brothers, we witness the preparation and performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Anyone watching this with the world's noise in mind will often feel a shock of recognition. The tragedy about a coup in ancient Rome shows...
5-hour marathon Roman Tragedies favourite with spectators Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Foto: jan Versweyveld We waren er wat mild ironisch over, maar petje af, inmiddels voor de pr-afdeling van Toneelgroep Amsterdam en de toeschouwers, die opvallend goed reageerden op de ‘kies de reprise’-actie die het gezelschap een paar weken terug lanceerde. We hebben de harde cijfers die we vreesden nooit te zullen zien. En die zijn geloofwaardig. We citeren het persbericht:…
Top or flop: audience picks repertoire first theatre company in the Netherlands
We got another press release, and wondered: top or flop? How does quirky artistry rhyme with audience-determined repertoire choice? Andne: do all those people who chose the winning piece also get a free-or at least discounted-ticket to the performance of their choice? Andne: who checks the results, as there is no notary. Enne:.
#HF11: They're going to make another big cut to the Russians at Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Cologne and Paris may not have been built in a day, but it took less than three days to fly to the moon. A warped comparison to say that a show that rattles three days before its premiere can turn out to be an unimaginable hit on the premiere itself. So something like that could happen with The Russians, the latest show
Death Horse puts on bold shoes and waves goodbye to Shakespeare in 'Bye Bye'
Foto: Sanne Peper Het Amsterdamse gezelschap Dood Paard vertaalde zelf Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ en zwaait met ‘Bye Bye’ de bard uit. Het eigenzinnige collectief brengt een anderhalve uur durende actuele zedenschets en zielenspiegel, waarin wijzen naar ‘De Ander’ centraal staat. Shakespeare’s stukken worden nogal eens heel eerbiedig opgevoerd. . De bewierookte ‘bard’ uit Stratford-upon-Avon heeft de Engelse taal bovendien talloze uitdrukkingen…
Superior played-in recordings are no guarantee of delivering a reference CD
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra currently has an unprecedented luxury: it is releasing CDs on two labels at the same time. How is that possible? The orchestra signed under its own name with BIS Records, the label with which the eccentric owner Von Bahr releases one extraordinary recording after another, while chief conductor Yannick Néze-Séguin is old-fashionedly under contract as maestro with EMI....
High praise for Curlew River; less for De Keersemaeker and Mendes #hf10
Curlew River Photo: Bertrand Stofleth For every independent journalist in the Netherlands, there are about 15 information officers. It is therefore obvious that these spokespeople largely determine the image in the media. Could that be why in the newspapers and television programmes surrounding the Holland Festival, the announcements are far more numerous than the critical reviews? A look at the...
Despite Dillane's splendid role, soporific Tempest shows failure of Sam Mendes' Bridge Project #hf10
By Wijbrand Schaap (photo by Joan Marcus) You can have Bach's St Matthew Passion performed by 15 canaries, an electric guitar, a drum kit, a ukulele and a accordion, and it will still be beautiful, because it is Bach. Similarly, you can have Shakespeare's up-and-coming British plays performed by a group of Americans, and it will...
We provide links at NRC culture blog #hf10
Wilfred Takken muses today on the character Jacques in the Shakespeare comedy As You Like It. The actor Stephen Dillane turns it into a wonderful Bob Dylan in The Bridge Project, says NRC reviewer Takken: When Dylan was once asked if he considered himself the "voice of a generation", he replied, "I'm just a song and dance man. Everyone laughed, but...
As You Like It despite brilliant jokes and fantastic Bob Dylan impersonation still a long sit #hf10
Door Wijbrand Schaap, Foto Joan Marcus Dat hebben wij dus niet. In Nederland. Zoveel goede acteurs van naam en faam om een complete Shakespearekomedie tot in de kleinste edelfiguratie met toppers te kunnen vullen. Ok, we komen een eind met onze Pierre Bokma’s, onze Gijs Scholten van Aschats, een Lineke Rijxman, Mariek Heebink en Ariane Schluter, en vlak Elsie de…
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