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Dr Faustus is an eerie play, of that here is no doubt, and this production of it gave a masterclass in atmosphere. From the moment you step down into the Keble O’Reilly’s cemented and unforgiving space showed off with stark brutalism, you know you’re in for one hell of a hair-raising ride. Georgie Murphy’s manic […]
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National society plays don’t seem to get much in the way of hype, at least not from the usual Oxford theatre outlets. This is a shame, because Woyzeck might be the best play the Burton-Taylor has seen all term. A fragmentary horror story about one soldier’s mental breakdown, it’s a grisly, relentless, thoroughly gripping piece […]
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I went to the opening night of The House of Bernarda Alba at Cellar on Monday. I had never been to a play at Cellar, but apparently it happens on occasion. The House of Bernarda Alba is a play written by Federico García Lorca, one of Spain’s most revered modern playwrights. The timing of the […]
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Doctor Faustus, I have come to realize, is a deeply odd play, and not only because of its age. Poet Christopher Marlowe’s writing is, superficially, similar to Shakespeare’s, but it is, in a sense, both less memorable and more learned, featuring lengthy sections of Latin, especially in the speech of the eponymous character, and large […]
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Sorrel’s guide to the top 10 Shakespearean insults and how to use them in your everyday life. “There’s small choice in rotten apples.” from Taming of the Shrew. When you can’t find a decent drinks selection on your Summer VIIIs cider run. “I desire that we be better strangers.” from As You Like It. […]
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The detritus on a table slowly builds up, the focal point of one of the cleverest plays ever written. A young child (Thomasina, played by Tallulah Vaughan) ponders on the nature of entropy, on life and atoms, all through the metaphor of rice pudding. “You cannot stir things apart” she says, with the kind of […]
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Iphigenia in Aulis is an intense play, one fraught with high tensions, emotional drama and fundamental ethical questions that face the audience and the actors at every turn. Beginning in the middle of Agamemnon’s ethical crisis – should anyone sacrifice their daughter on behalf of their army? – it is destined to be a hugely […]
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When I was working as an usher at the English National Opera last year, I saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street a whole 12 times, which for some would probably be almost enough times to send them on a bloodthirsty killing spree, themselves. But being quite so familiar with the show, I […]
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Jake is a second year student studying Spanish at Exeter College. We met at the very sociable hour of 8 o’clock at Exeter for breakfast. The House of Bernarda Alba, (La Casa de Bernarda Alba in Spanish) is a play by Federico García Lorca, one of Spain’s most famous modern playwrights. It will be performed […]
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As I sat down in the Pilch Studio, and the preview of Gruffdog Theatre’s Rhinoceros commenced, I was flabbergasted. Suddenly, as the cast swirled across the stage with endearing, yet stylish buffoonery, I was in provincial France. Eugene Ionesco’s iconic piece about how a rural French town confronts an endemic of ‘rhinoceritis’ (a disease which […]
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Walking into a deserted Wadham first quad on a Monday evening, you’d have no idea that somewhere, squirrelled away in the bowels of a crammed performance space, 57 performers and various other crew members were deeply engaged in drawing together Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with Purcell’s musical score to create the semi-opera ‘The Fairy […]
Continue ReadingShakespeare’s Dead – a day of Shakespearean activities – Alice Robinson For a Bard Nerd like me, April 23rd any year is a pretty big deal; the day big man Shakespeare is supposed to have been born, and the day on which he definitely died. This year, however, is a particularly exciting time for us […]
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The focus of theatre is often literary, aiming to explore the plays themselves, but it’s also important to remember that it’s the people behind the production who are instrumental in lifting the words from page to stage. For this reason, we want to get an insight into all different aspects of a production, front and […]
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In some ways, it is fortunate that this page does not contain a transcript of incomprehensible stuttering. This is not because Orphans, directed by Georgia Bruce, was anything but fantastic, but rather that it delivered such a knock-out blow to its audience, that it was difficult to summon words afterwards. Actors: if you felt […]
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There are few works of literature that are so simple, yet so touching, as Saint-Exupéry’s ‘Le Petit Prince’, an enduring fantastical tale that enters into the minds of children as they try to navigate through the world of adults. To adapt such a work of literature into a stage production naturally poses difficulties, particularly regarding […]
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‘What would you have me do? I am a subject/ And I challenge law’ I’ll come clean: I was late and had come from the pub. My friend was repeatedly asking who was the goodie and who was the baddie, and I had dropped my last non-coloured pencil into the abyss of the Keble O’Reilly’s […]
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To many, the thought of Russian literature conjures up bad memories of trying to read War and Peace, because ‘it’s just one of those things you just have to read’, before giving up and skimming through a summary online instead. And yet, it’s the lighter, less philosophical side of Russian literature that is often less […]
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“Why the 23-year-old Sarah Kane chose to write it is her affair. Presumably because she was given a grant by the hitherto admirable Jerwood Foundation in their quest to help new talent. Some will undoubtedly say the money might have been better spent on a course of remedial therapy” Jack Tinker infamously wrote in the […]
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This play begins with an apology. It’s the sort of metatheatrical student show styling it would be easy to snort at, were it not for the confidence and self-deprecating humour with which it was presented. “It’s probably quite self-indulgent, this whole exercise. But then, so is most theatre.” Raw, honest, and self-conscious to a fault, […]
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