Henry V: an awful rewrite

by | Jul 6, 2023 | Review

Director Lois Anderson hasn’t just adapted Shakespeare’s Henry V for Bard on the Beach, she has attempted to rewrite it — and the results are a mess. In Henry V, the reckless young Prince Hal of Henry IV, turns into a warrior whose troops slaughter the French at...

As You Like It (most of the time)

by | Jun 19, 2023 | Review

It’s wonderful. There are holes in it. But it’s still wonderful. When I first saw director Daryl Cloran’s Beatles-inspired adaptation of As You Like It in its premiere at Bard on the Beach five years ago, I was smitten. Cloran has cut half of Shakespeare’s text and...

Harlem Duet: intriguing, but (for me) muffled music

by | Jun 25, 2022 | Review

Something is out of focus here. Maybe it’s me. Djanet Sears’s 1997 script Harlem Duet riffs on Othello — and it takes on a lot. The action of Sears’s play unfolds in three time periods. In the core narrative, we’re in Harlem in 1997. In the event that triggers the...

Done/Undone: half done

by | Aug 17, 2021 | Review

For me, the two most personalized passages in Done/Undone, screenwriter Kate Besworth’s new film about the current relevancy — or irrelevancy — of Shakespeare’s work, are also the most successful. In Done/Undone, which was initially commissioned by Bard on the Beach...