Shakespeare Theatre Company brings its
Summer Free For All program to life for a 29th season, this year reviving its
2018 production of Hamlet, originally directed by Michael Kahn and
remounted by Artistic Associate Craig Baldwin, and starring Michael Urie as the
title role. The show is a power-packed run at over 3 hours, but a scattered
performance from the cast and an incohesive design leaves the audience feeling
every minute of it.
Everything feels as if it has just happened. Ellen McLaughlin’s
The Oresteia, freely adapted from the
trilogy by Aeschylus that is nearly 2,500 years old, feels as if it is
happening. And what must happen does. Boldly closing the 2018/2019 season at
Shakespeare Theatre Company in their prestigious Sidney Harman Hall under the
Direction of STC legend Michael Kahn, The
Oresteia is modernized yet timeless, prescient yet ancient;
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. By that logic, theatergoers should be rushing out to Shakespeare Theater Company for Michael Kahn’s production of Hamlet starring Michael Urie as the mad Danish prince. Disturbingly dystopian, albeit conceptually undercooked, this production marks the end of an era as Michael Kahn, the show’s director and the company’s long-standing artistic director, makes it his final production before retiring. Not without impressive performances given by the featured player and others,
Just who is who and what is what? Who’s lying? Who’s telling the truth? Scandal, lovers, mistresses, and then some await eager audiences of Washington DC as Shakespeare Theatre Company opens the 2017/2018 season with a double-bill of Harold Pinter. Artistic Director Michael Kahn brings The Lover & The Collection together for an evening inside the darkly scandalous and peculiarly humorous world of Pinter’s somewhat dated characters. Overlooking the misogyny and general banality of the female character featured in each of these productions,