D.L. Groover, Houston Press
May 10, 2014
The set-up:
The following observation will come as no surprise, nor is it original, but it still must be stated: compared to Shakespeare, all other playwrights are pinched and parochial.
The wit of Stoppard, the cosmic howl from Beckett, the bitchy laceration of Albee, the epic family squabble from O’Neill – all seem quite minor when placed next to the Bard. No matter the genre, his work rings the truest, is always the freshest, and goes right to the heart.
The great secret, of course, is that his plays are to be seen, not read. On the page, you can trip over yourself with those knotty Jacobean phrases with their antique vocabulary and equally strange syntax. But put his poetry in the hands of actors who know when to pause, when to declaim, when to massage his words, when to make a telling gesture, and there’s nothing like it in the world. Everything becomes clear. Shakespeare is the world. He doesn’t skimp on its beauties and wonders, or its terrors and evils. The astonishing breadth of our existence is all here, waiting to be unleashed.
Under its sure, loving guidance, Stark Naked Theatre not only unleashes Shakespeare’s complex fairy tale, The Winter’s Tale, but sets it soaring. […continued]
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