DEBORAH CROMBIE: Whenever I have a trip to London, I'm always asked what shows I'm seeing while here. And I usually have to sheepishly reply, um, none. And I have to even more sheepishly admit that I've never been much of a theater person. I didn't grow up in a household that attended live performances, ever, that I can remember. My parents didn't even watch old musicals on TV!
As an adult, for years I had season subscriptions to the opera and the symphony, but I didn't manage theater productions, except for a few summer musicals and Shakespeare in the Park.
I can probably count the number of West End shows I've seen on the fingers of one hand. (Ouch!) My excuse is usually that I'm doing research for my novels and plays are not something that really figure in my characters' lives. But that's no longer strictly true. There is Toby's ballet, for one thing. (The last London show I saw before this week was Billy Elliott, just before it closed its long London run.) And I now have a couple of secondary characters with theater connections, so I can call it research!
Not that I need any excuse, because good drama is always exhilarating and inspiring and sets the writing brain off like fireworks.
Which brings me to Wednesday's matinee performance of ROMEO AND JULIET at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, who is the very hot thing in London theatre these days, and starring Isis Hainsworth as Juliet and Toheeb Jimoh as Romeo. TED LASSO fans know him as Sam Obisanya, the Nigerian footballer, but Jimoh is classicly trained and he was terrific.
I had never seen R&J live, only the films.
This production was just over two hours with no intermission.The theatre is small and feels very intimate, perfect for this pared down version of the play that was fast and funny, raw and violent, and so REAL. How did Shakespeare, in his time, write something that could absolutely be today?
I'm still buzzy, and I will be making sure there's more theatre in my future.
REDS and readers, do you love theatre? And what's your favorite LIVE Shakespeare production?
PS: For you TED LASSO fans, Toheeb was not only brilliant, he was so NICE, greeting fans afterwards in the lobby, signing autographs and posing for pics. I shook his hand but was too shy to ask for a photo, and now I really regret it!
Oh, yes, I love the theater. When I was in college, we'd often take the train into the city to see a Broadway show. John and I took the girls to community theater productions whenever we could; when we were in New York City with the Colorado contingent of the family, a Broadway play was one of the must-do things.
ReplyDeleteWhich live performance of a Shakespeare play is my favorite? It's hard to choose just one, but "The Comedy of Errors" is always a treat . . . .
I LOVE theater. Symphony and Opera, not so much, but give me a good theatrical production, and I'm there. Musicals and comedy are my favorite. Haven't seen much Shakespeare, to be honest, so I can't say what my favorite seen live is.
ReplyDeleteI’m just the opposite of you, Deborah. I was raised watching musicals and when I was a little older, going into San Francisco to see the touring companies of the latest Broadway shows. Now I am fortunate to live in San Diego where we have the Old Globe Theater. Every summer they perform two Shakespeare plays in their outdoor theater. I have seen many very good productions over the years, but my very first that I remember seeing was The Taming of the Shrew in San Francisco when I was home from college and Marc Singer played Petruchio. This was before he was in the Beastmaster movies and he was in great shape. :) Let’s just say he made a big impression on me! — Pat S.
ReplyDeleteHooray for a shout out for the OGT! They’ve been my employer for most of my adult life & where I’ve been lucky enough to work on a large portion of the canon.
DeleteTo add to my comment above, right before Bouchercon is held in August, the Old Globe Theater will be performing “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (www,theoldglobe.org) And no, I’m not on commission!
ReplyDeleteYou didn’t ask, but my favorite Shakespearean film is Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh’s version of “Much Ado About Nothing”. I will watch anything with Emma Thompson and it’s set in Tuscany! —Pat S.
Pat, I watched Branagh's Henry V in the theater at last 5 times!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'm pretty sure that I first saw Branagh and Thompson's Much Ado when it first came out in the theaters. I adored it. Most times, I try to read the plays before I see them performed just to avoid being stymied by the language. I had absolutely no problem with the language in this adaptation. I will also say that I was terrible disappointed when the couple broke up in real life.
DeleteMe, too, on the breakup, David. They seemed such a perfect couple. Just goes to show you never know what things are really like between people.
DeleteI'd like to have reread the play before I saw this performance, but in a way it was good NOT to have done that because it made it very fresh and immediate. And I also didn't even think about the language being difficult after the first few minutes.
Oh, so agree – – I thought that version of Henry V was absolutely brilliant, brilliant.
DeleteI've never been to the theater but I would love to go to NYC or London some time to see a show or 2. I've never been to either place but to change planes. I wish I could get out more.
ReplyDeleteThat performance sounds perfect, Debs. I'm not much of a theater person, either - never been to a Broadway show, for example. Small intimate theaters are the way to go.
ReplyDeleteBut I have seen live Shakespeare a number of times, all fabulous. Midsummer Night's Dream done outdoors was wonderful, but the best has to be Much Ado About Nothing in London's Globe theater. I had a standing room matinee ticket and stood with my nose nearly on the stage. Glorious.
The only Romeo and Juliet I've seen is Zephirelli's film when I was a romantic teenager. Ruined me for life!
I have toured the Globe when it first opened, but I haven't seen a performance there. Now I must do!
DeleteLike you, Debs, theater was not part of my life growing up. However, we did watch musicals on TV and I LOVED Oklahoma. I fell in love with live musicals when I was given tickets to Les Mis. I still get chills just thinking of those songs. Sadly, I don't get to go often but always jump when the opportunity arises.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen Shakespeare live though. That R&J productions sounds amazing.
It was SO intense! I think most of the audience was in tears at the end. And they didn't do the epilogue--the performance ends with Juliet's death. Very effective!
DeleteDEBS: I am glad you enjoyed watching this live performance.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Toronto, I would travel to the Stratford Festival for live Shakespeare performances. It's a few hours drive west of Toronto.
Although Ottawa has the NAC (National Arts Centre), I mostly go for concerts, not live theatre.
I love attending live performances, musicals being my favorite.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, we took a trip to Manhattan to see Moses Gunn in Othello. I was too young to really understand the complex web of jealousy and perceived betrayal, but I remember saying to Othello in my head, "You're being played, man. You're being played." A few years later, I went myself to stand online for free tickets for Shakespeare in the Park. It was Hamlet, with Kevin Kline, I believe. I was still too young to really appreciate it. Since moving to Pennsylvania more than 30 years ago, I haven't been to see too much live theater. I did go to see four live productions of Gilbert and Sullivan put on by a local G&S troop. There were no reserved seats, so we arrived early and sat right up almost in the pit. When I was younger, I remember seeing Joe Namath twice playing each of the leading roles in a production of The Caine Mutiny. It was hard not to compare it to the Humphrey Bogart and Fred McMurray version of the silver screen but Namath was more than commendable.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have seen Kevin Kline as Hamlet. I suspect in a few years people will be saying that about Toheeb Jimoh as Romeo.
DeleteO-o-o, Kevin Kline is one of my favorite actors! Maybe 35-40 years ago, PBS had shown a production of Kevin as Hamlet, and he was wonderful! Such a versatile actor: Shakespeare, comedy, drama. Excellent in all! Charlene Miller-Wilson
DeleteAbove comment was David Squires. I don't know why it didn't identify me.
ReplyDeleteDebs - My favorite theatre is the Old Globe in Stratford Upon Avon. They produce the best Shakespeare in the world imho. I could literally sit in that theatre and watch all the Shakespeare plays non stop. I've seen Henry IV, V, VI, Measure for Measure, Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream,Taming of the Shrew, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've been to London numerous times but sadly have never seen The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie but need to !!
I've never been very motivated to see The Mousetrap. Didn't I read that it finally closed?
DeleteI think it took a break during Covid and is now playing again in London.
DeleteKevin Kline is one of my favorite actors and I've had the chance to see him in several productions of Shakespeare -- Hamlet, Henry IV and Much Ado About Nothing. That last was years ago in Central Park and he played Benedick opposite Blythe Danner as Beatrice. As much as I love the Thompson-Branagh movie version, I think that live version will always be my favorite.
ReplyDeleteKevin Kline is one of my favorite actors too! I'd stand in line to see anything live he was in! You were quite lucky to see him so early in his career. Charlene Miller-Wilson
DeleteI'm getting in more live performances this trip. Last night I got to see my friend Barb Jungr perform her new album My Marquee (bases on music performed at the iconic Soho Marquee Club) at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho's Dean Street. What a fabulous show! And then on the 10th I'm going to see The Mikado at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Lots of Variety here!
ReplyDeleteThe local Rotary club used to do a musical production every spring when we were kids featuring all your neighbours. I think I was about 8 when I saw my first one and fell in love – it was Annie Get Your Gun. Since then, I have seen many more by them, and of course many times Anne of Green Gables in Charlottetown PEI. I saw Cats three times – the first in nose bleed territory (the best because you see the entire screen all at once), next way too close (you could see facial expressions, but you lost the magnificence of the production) and the last somewhere in the middle – all good and all different. I have learned that the best seats in the house in my opinion, are in the centre from of the balcony.
ReplyDeleteI took the kids to a small theatre production of Les Miz in Montreal. Tristan was about 8 at the time, and we were all mesmerized by the storming of the Bastille. Laura loved the music and Michael was throwing up with a migraine as usual. Couldn’t take that boy anywhere.
We (the fellow who usually harumphs in the chair beside me) just watched Come From Away on Apple Tv. Oh, to watch that live – wouldn’t that be a treat!
Happy Canada Day everyone!
Happy Canada Day to you Margo and to all our Canadian friends. My husband's parents were both born and raised in Toronto. But they immigrated to the US in the early 1940's. My husband is an American citizen by birth, but at age 80 he is applying for a Canadian passport (the Canadian government is now allowing this - complicated law) and he hopes to get one.
ReplyDeleteThank you Anonymous
DeleteDanielle
It’s been some time since I went to a live show. I prefer musicals to theatre.
ReplyDeleteWe produce very good musicals in Quebec. My favourite was Notre-Dame de Paris.
When I visited New-York, I had bought an online ticket for The King and I but when I went to see it, they had canceled the show without notifying me. I was very disappointed.
As for a live Shakespeare production, I only saw one and it was the ballet of Romeo and Juliet: awesome !
Danielle
They used the Prokofiev's ballet in the production, and there was a lot of movement in the staging. It made it very dynamic.
DeleteI have only seen two live performances of a Shakespeare play, and liked them both, although the latter, A Midsummer Night's Dream, captivated me. Moira Shearer, a ballerina I admired, performed an excerpt between acts. But I have always loved live theater. There is a real magic that comes across that doesn't happen on film. In Sacramento, before we moved, we used to go to some of the plays put on by small, local theater groups.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's British family was into musical theater. Both my aunt and my grandpa performed with the Leeds Amateur Operatic Society. Dad took us to see the Mikado and a few other shows growing up, and he had some roles in Portland State University performances. He was the grave digger in Hamlet and had a part in All's Well that Ends Well and a larger part in Bartholomew Fair. I enjoy theater as an adult, but find the prices a bit out of reach.
ReplyDeleteI should add that I have been to Ashland and seen performances at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival several times and loved it! Also a few Shakespeare in the Park events, in Portland and Boise.
DeleteMy son-in-law is a professor at Portland State University in the English Dept. I'll have to check out their theatre next time I fly up.
DeleteIt's been so long since I've seen a live production of anything!! When I was single my friends and I would take blankets and baskets of wine and cheese to see Shakespeare in the Park, which moved around the many parks of Cincinnati. Steve is hard of hearing, so it's no fun for him to attend performances he can't understand, so I got out of the habit. My favorite was A Midsummer Night's Dream, for its madcap premise and wacky characters. Makes you wonder what kind of mind-altering substances were available in Shakespearean times.
ReplyDeleteThe last live Shakespeare play I've seen was the Playhouse in the Park's staging of King Lear, which was incredible. That has to be more than six years ago by now. Time for another, I'd say. When my middle daughter was a teenager she aspired to be an actor, and had six years of acting summer camp at the Playhouse. We had season tickets and always enjoyed seeing live theater together--one of the best bonding experiences we had.
Debs, do you have a friend who goes to the theater and other events with you in London? That would make it easier to make plans, I think.
DeleteI have seen some wonderful Broadway plays, mostly musicals, both in NYC and here in Cincy. Bubbling Brown Sugar, 42nd Street, Chicago, Cats, A Chorus Line, Les Mis, all on Broadway. The King and I, Wicked, The Book of Mormon, Murder on the Orient Express, La Boheme (not staged as an opera), and many more plays here in town, not to mention operas and ballets.
I watched a lot of musicals on TV growing up. I enjoy live theatre, having mostly attended high school and college productions. We did go to one Broadway show the one time we’ve been to NYC. Stood in line for reduced price day-of seats with a few shows to choose from. Ended up seeing School of Rock which was full of energy and absolutely fantastic.
ReplyDeleteOh, so agree! School of rock was wonderful!
DeleteWonderful topic! I believe I commented on here some other time about my fortunate teenage stint as an usher at summer theater. I saw Lana Turner, Van Johnson, David MacCallum, etc. A real treat that I appreciated at the time. Like Debs, too shy to do more than line up for an autograph, and anyway, no cell phones for pics back then.
ReplyDeleteHub and I have seen shows in NYC and London -- always making time for them. Also in Pitlochry Scotland because we had a free evening.
We saw Penelope Keith and Patricia Routledge and others. Magnificent. But remembering our discussion about how much actors owe to writers, I'm just as glad to say I saw a play by Noel Coward and one by Agatha Christie (The Mousetrap).
Deborah, I am so jealous! I've never seen any live theater show. No, wait, I lied. I once won ticket to see Nunsense but our seats were so far away we couldn't see very well and we couldn't hear a thing, so I don't think that even counts.
ReplyDeleteSo it's not enough that there you are in London, see a wonderful show, with wonderful actors who you got to meet, at least long enough to shake a hand, and you didn't get an autograph? Oh well, you have your memories and we'll just have to live vicariously through your experience. Thank you!
Oh, how wonderful! That must’ve been transporting. And yes, isn’t that the thing about Shakespeare… Completely relevant, every time.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Count me in as a massive theater fan. I think it began when I was maybe… 13? Could that be? And saw Richard Burton and Julie Andrews in Camelot. With Robert Goulet as Lancelot, That was it. Life-changing forever. I cried for about three weeks if I remember correctly. And my love tor theater was set.
In fact, decluttering, I just found some old playbills from years and years ago: Miss Saigon with Jonathan Pryce,
M. Butterfly, the original Once on this Island, Prelude to a Kiss with Mary Louise Parker and Matthew Broderick , and maybe my favorite play of all time, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. I know I should throw them away, but I can’t bear to.
Covid really did a number on going to the theater though, didn’t it?
Yay Debs for this adventure! I am always in awe of your trips to London. You are quite incredible.
I LOVE musical theatre and missed it during the pandemic. I moved two+ hours north three years ago and was thrilled to see that I was just 10 minutes away from the local Harris Center, but . . . the pandemic. So now I am making up for lost time. I just bought a subscription to their four upcoming "Broadway" musicals. I have heard of two of them--On Your Feet (the Gloria Estefan story) and The Cher Show, but I don't think the other two have been to Broadway (yet)--Madagascar the Musical and Mystic Pizza. They sound fun! Turns out the seats I bought are in the front row center (hope that works out)--who knew row D was the front row?
ReplyDeleteBut as for my favorites seen in person, mostly in San Francisco--Hamilton (of course), The Book of Mormon, Evita with Patti Lupone many years ago (her voice!). If/Then with Idina Menzel (not a great show but . .. her voice!), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Oh, I loved Company in Maui. I've seen a few on Broadway that were memorable--Hair (in the 60s!), Golden Boy with Sammy Davis Junior, Spamalot with Clay Aiken. But my all-time thrill was seeing In the Heights on Broadway just after it transferred from Off-Broadway. Lin-Manuel Miranda was still playing the lead, with the rest of the original cast. That was the beginning of my love affair in Lin, and I'd never even heard of him at the time.
Oh, I'd love to have see The Heights with Lin! I'm a huge fan of him, too!
DeleteDeborah,
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful experience and I totally understand being too shy to ask for a photo. Just finished watching TED LASSO. Wow! That was a good show.
When I was at Oxford, several of my friends would go to London to see theater. Not me. As much as I love the theater (I wanted to be an actress when I was a child), I would prefer to see the Royal Ballet at Covet Gardens in London. No words. However, a friend learned about a live Shakespeare performance at the Rose ? Theatre right in Oxford. It also had Sign Language interpreters in British Sign Language. We went to see Measure for Measure and I watched the interpreters. There were two interpreters though I remember the interpreter from Wales who chatted with us during intermission. We learned the sign for Wales.
Back in the States, they used to have Sign Language interpreters for ONE performance of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at Curran? ACT? theater in San Francisco. Unfortunately, they stopped doing that before 9/11. I was trying to recall the last time I went. I always make an effort to go if they have Sign Language interpreters.
After they ended access to A CHRISTMAS CAROL, my friends and I went to see the Opera (English supertitles) and we went to see the Ballet.
Diana
How wonderful! Love those small theaters, they really bring the audience into the experience. Glad that you were able to attend.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the shadow of NYC. Live theater (and opera, and symphonies) were a part of life. When I left NY in 1979 I made it a point to see everything. My AMEX looked like the inventory sheet at Ticketron. Miami, at the time, was a cultural wasteland. That didn't last long, soon I worked for Miami City Ballet and had season tickets with the Concert Assn of Greater Miami, the opera, and well, you get the idea. My favorite shows were in The Colony Theater on Lincoln Road. It began life as a movie theater built by the Paramount movie chain, and in the 80s morphed into a live performance theater. A very intimate setting made for a wonderful experience.
50 years ago we saw Hamlet at Middlebury College performed by students all dressed in black t-shirts and black pants. Took my breath away.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet! They did R&J in mostly modern dress, with a few period touches. It worked!
DeleteIt’s hard to pick a favorite! But I think I need to go with the very first Shakespeare play that I saw live. My high school had a field trip to the long-gone Shakespeare Theater in Stratford CT. We saw The Taming of the Shrew, starring Ruby Dee. It was excellent! I went to a few more plays there over the years. I miss it!
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Big musical and theater fan since high school. My high school put on very professional shows which
ReplyDeleteI worked on back stage including a production of Peter Pan which used the actual flying equipment
and Nana (the dog and nursemaid) costume from the Broadway production.
Boston, as a tryout city, has always had a very active theater scene. At one time, there was an arts
festival every summer which always included a series of Shakespeare plays. The first play I saw there was Twelfth Night.
Over the years, I have seen many musicals often with the original performers but not the original performances such as Carol Channing (Hello Dolly), Richard Kiley (Man of la Mancha) and Anthony Newley. Non-play performers have included Harry Belafonte and Marcel Marceau (who I visited backstage).
In London I saw stage versions of Singing in the Rain and On your Toes.
A Metropolitan Opera performance of Otello really brought the characters to life for me, probably more so than if I had seen it in a nonmusical version.
I LOVE Sam. That would have been awesome to see. We're going to London in two weeks and have tickets to Six. I'm excited!
ReplyDeleteI didn't have trouble getting a ticket to R&J a couple of weeks in advance. You should go!
DeleteFrom Celia: Debs I'm so glad you're having a wonderful time in your little rose covered mews house. This brought so many memories for me. While this is not Shakespeare my first memory of heater in London was Peter Pan, and I so envy you seeing Romeo and Juliet with Toheeb Jimoh who we all adore after Ted Lasso. You will be able to say that you saw him act back in the day. At my English boarding school every now and then they showed us a movie. That's where I saw Lawrence Olivier in both Henry V, "Now all the youth of England are on fire", and Richard III. After Richard III there was a speaker who had worked on the movie, and I remember the most wanted information was on the fake blood. Trust teenagers to get to the bottom of the plot. It was many years before I read Josephine Tey's book - I'm blanking on the name - about how Richard III had been ghosted by the Tudors. I went to the National Gallery just to see his portrait which was as enigmic as Tay described. But to get back to theater and especially Shakespeare. I remember going to the Old Vic but can't remember for what. When we lived in NYC we went to the Delacorte either in 1969 or 1970 before we left for the 'burbs with babe eminent. Then it was each summer over to Stratford Ct. with a glam picnic etc. We were much admired as I had a set of silver wine goblets as a wedding present. Goodness looking back where did my energy come from? Victor and my first date was a trip to the theatre to see "Beyond the Fringe" very avant grade at the time. But our real love is classical including trips to the Met Opera which we certainly can't afford now so thank goodness for Met Opera HD. I also did a lot of back stage work on community theatre so I will say my fav play is 'Twelfth Night". Why well it was my first successful costuming attend for Maria. We were in Ghana and being a part of that community was a beach of life for me as a teen. Our daughter, Olivia, is so named as Victor wanted to continue the Shakespeare naming of my family. Me - Celia, my sister, Rosalind. I was sad that my parents wouldn't name our bro, Touchstone!" My mothers' Shakespeare had a painting of Celia, Rosalind and Touchstone in the forest of Arden and I thought it was a fine name.
ReplyDeleteFrom Celia: I shouldn't forget that for my 75th birthday Victor took me to see Hamitton in Boston. Our last live performance before the pandemic struck. It was everything I hoped and wished it would be.
ReplyDeleteOh, I am so glad you went. Debs! I love the theater and have attended productions big and small my entire life. Growing up in CT, Broadway was a short train ride away so we went often. In AZ, Hub and I have several date nights at Gammage every year to see whatever is touring that catches out fancy and I used to attend the opera and ballet in downtown Phoenix. My favorite Shakespeare production to date was Much Ado About Nothing in a small regional production in CT. So good!
ReplyDeleteThis production sounds amazing, Debs!
ReplyDeleteI've been fortunate to have seen a great deal of live Shakespeare in my life, in DC, in New York, in London and here in Maine. Over the past decades there's been a lot of high-quality free outdoors productions, which are perfect for introducing middle-school aged kids to the Bard - they can get up and walk about if they feel fidgety and no one minds if you're whispering explanatory info.
Two of the most interesting have been a production of King John, which I had never seen before, staged in my own church. St. Luke's is a gothic cathedral, and the director took full advantage of that setting, using lighting to shade the events from fully magnificent to the darkness of the King's final pitiful end.
Another was the Fenix Theatre's Hamlet, done, in of all things, in and around a large moving truck in Portland's Deering Oaks Park. It was a stellar, inventive production, and when Ophelia wandered away across the grass and over the rise - which hides an actual, real pond and brook from view - it was utterly chilling.
Just reading that gave me goosebumps, Julia!
DeleteI adore theater! My parents were playwrights who took us to theatre in Los Angeles where all the big hits traveled often with amazing casts. South Pacific with Mary Martin… sigh … then going to college in ny I went to as much theatre as I could (twofer tickets!) Funny Girl and Marat/Sade and… when I’m in ny or London theatre is a destination though it’s gotten prohibitively expensive
ReplyDeleteMy elementary school took us to see Shakespeare plays back when there was a Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Connecticut. I probably saw 2 or 3 productions there in the 1950's.
ReplyDeleteMy high school put on a musical production every spring, and we also did a town wide summer stock of high school and college students. I was in the violin section of the orchestra and knew every line in every musical! Some of our students became professionals and one famous alum won a Tony.
These days, I subscribe to 2 theater companies in the area. I see between 5 and 10 live performances every year including musicals and plays. The best Shakespeare production was Mark Lamos's direction of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Irwin and I still talk about how hard we laughed during that one.
Such an interesting conversation! Just have to "join", late as I am. I didn't grow up with theater at all, - small city, no opportunity - though a wonderful aunt who lived in suburban NY took me to my first live theater - Music Man on Broadway. To this day, it has a special place in my heart. Since then, I've had opportunities to see lots, some really great, including Shakespeare. By chance, I've seen a few of the plays more than once. Two Gentleman of Verona -some of my earliest live theater- is one. Or two. Very first trip anywhere was after grad school and included England. We went to Stratford. So exciting! A friiend who was working there that summer got me and my travel pal tickets to Two Gents. With Helen Mirren. Yes! Not yet famous. Enough to say that performance has stayed with me for a lifetime. And later friends got tix (free but hard to get) to see the same play outdoors, part of NY Shakespeare Festival, a production that became famous. Rock music, circus atmosphere, and an outstanding cast led by Raul Julia. What luck I had, at that impressionable time in my life!
ReplyDeleteI’m deeply jealous that you got see that R&J- a couple of London based friends raved about it recently.
ReplyDeleteHaving spent 30 years working in live theatre- mostly Shakespeare and pre Broadway tryouts for big musicals or touring Broadway musicals- it’s safe to say I love it. My mother started taking to our local Shakespeare in the park when I was 4 and forever warped my life.
Choosing a favorite that I’ve seen live is hard- I’ve worked on 28 of the 39 over the course of my career and seen an additional 4. My top three would be Titus Andronicus- we did an amazing production at the Old Globe in San Diego roughly 18 years ago that I still think about, David Tennent’s Hamlet which I saw at the RSC and an insanely fun Midsummer Night’s Dream that I saw at The Bridge in London the summer before the pandemic with Gwendolyn Christie and Oliver Chris- it’s available to watch through National Theatre Live’s streaming service and I’ve rewatched it 3 or 4 times because its so just brilliant.