King John
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Tim Carroll
Tom Patterson Theatre
May 21 to September 20
Opens May 28
War is the inevitable result when the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favour of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political and personal turmoil that finds devastating expression in an anguished mother’s grief for her son.
Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Dominic Dromgoole
[button url=”https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]FRIENDS CLOSE, ENEMIES CLOSER
When Caesar returns to Rome from the wars a virtual dictator, Brutus and his republican friends resolve that his ambition must be curbed – which in Rome can mean only one thing: the great general must be assassinated. But once the deed is done, the idealistic conspirators must reckon with the forces of a new power bloc, led by Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavius. When their armies close at Philippi, will Caesar’s ghost be avenged?
Opposing dictatorship and republicanism, private virtue and mob violence, Shakespeare’s tense drama of high politics reveals the emotional currents that flow between men in power.
This production will employ Renaissance costumes and staging.
Royal Shakespeare Company
30 July – 29 November 2014
Directed by Maria Aberg
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Beautiful Vittoria begins an illicit affair, enlisting the help of her brother Flamenio to fool her husband. They soon find themselves snared in a web of corruption, passion and retribution as their pursuit of personal gain reaches an epic and bloody conclusion.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
From 6 August (touring UK and USA)
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Old King Lear, weary of royal duties, proposes to break up his kingdom and divide it among his three daughters. But this rash generosity is cruelly repaid and Lear discovers too late the false values by which he has lived – and, in turn, the suffering common to all humanity.
Its tempestuous poetry shot through with touches of humour and moments of heart-rending simplicity, King Lear is one of the deepest artistic explorations of the human condition.
The Comedy of Errors
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Blanche McIntyre
[button url=”https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]Take one pair of estranged twin brothers (both called Antipholus), and one pair of estranged twin servants (both called Dromio), keep them in ignorance of each other and throw them into a city with a reputation for sorcery, and you have all the ingredients for theatrical chaos. One Antipholus is astonished by his foreign hospitality; the other enraged by the hostility of his home town. The Dromios, caught between the two, are soundly beaten for obeying all the wrong orders.
Basing his plot on a farce by Plautus, Shakespeare caps the mayhem of his Roman original to build up a hectic tale of violent cross-purposes, furious slapstick and social nightmare.
This production will employ Renaissance costumes and staging.