pedanther

...and, as is sometimes the case, as soon as I said definitely that I didn't think I'd be watching any more of the theatre streams, the brain weasels packed up and went on holiday and I was finally able to watch the stream of The Winter's Tale that I've been putting off for a couple of months.

This is the other stream of The Winter's Tale, the one from Cheek by Jowl, which means that it's now happened twice in the past year that I've seen two productions of a problem play where the first production was in a Globe-replica theatre and leaned comedic and the second production was by Cheek by Jowl and leaned dramatic/discomforting.

This one wasn't as unrelenting as the Cheek by Jowl production of Measure for Measure: it did keep some of the comedy of the Bohemian scenes, and there was a satisfying ending. ( Read more... )

I'm not entirely certain whether I liked it, all things considered and taking the bad with the good, but I am entirely certain that I'm glad I watched it; it was an experience worth acquiring.

(And now that I've stopped procrastinating over that one stream, does that mean I'll start watching others again? I don't know, and I don't intend to think about it too hard in case I attract the notice of the brain weasels again. We'll just have to wait and see.)

Thoughts on some more of the theatrical productions that have been made available online for people stuck at home:

. Twelfth Night, National Theatre, 2017: ( Read more... )

. Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's Globe, 2009: ( Read more... )

. King Lear, Stratford Festival of Canada, 2014: ( Read more... )

. Measure for Measure, Cheek by Jowl, 2015 (available until 25 May): ( Buckle in, this is a long one )

. Here's an opportunity which I'm not sure I'll take: there are currently two different theatre groups offering streams of The Winter's Tale -- one from Cheek by Jowl, available until 25 May, and one from Shakespeare's Globe, available until 31 May. They'll almost certainly be very different interpretations, which would make comparisons interesting, but I don't know if I can fit them both in, especially since it may be a while before I've finished digesting the Cheek by Jowl production I just saw.