SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT-SHAKESPEARE TAKES A KNIFE TO AN OLD CLASSIC IN A GENDER-SWAPPED EXPLORATION OF POWER
There's more than one way to skin a play. Particularly, a Shakespearean play. How many times have you seen the same text done differently? Back up: I don't expect you to have seen a ton of Shakespeare and I don't mind displaying my own ignorance by publicly announcing that I'm much more familiar with and interested in new works rather than classical...but even I have been seduced by the prospect of a young theatre practitioner re-enlivening a classical work. I get why they do it: Because the greatest love story ever told will always be the greatest love story ever told. I accept that. But really great storytellers and artists bring something new to the piece, a new score, dance number, context, fairy princess, masturbation scene...WHATEVER...new things for better or for worse to revive the story. Really great artists resuscitate the voice and the breathe of the dying-old-man-texts of before-your-time Europe by twisting them just a little. Such an artist is Victoria Urquhart.
There's more than one way to skin a play. Particularly, a Shakespearean play. How many times have you seen the same text done differently? Back up: I don't expect you to have seen a ton of Shakespeare and I don't mind displaying my own ignorance by publicly announcing that I'm much more familiar with and interested in new works rather than classical...but even I have been seduced by the prospect of a young theatre practitioner re-enlivening a classical work. I get why they do it: Because the greatest love story ever told will always be the greatest love story ever told. I accept that. But really great storytellers and artists bring something new to the piece, a new score, dance number, context, fairy princess, masturbation scene...WHATEVER...new things for better or for worse to revive the story. Really great artists resuscitate the voice and the breathe of the dying-old-man-texts of before-your-time Europe by twisting them just a little. Such an artist is Victoria Urquhart.
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