Shakespeare in the Park Review—“The Winter’s Tale” at the Delacorte Theater with Raúl Esparza

The Winter’s Tale

Written by William Shakespeare

Choreography by Mimi Lieber; directed by Daniel Sullivan

Performances through August 23, 2026

Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York City

publictheater.org

The cast of The Winter's Tale (photo: Joan Marcus)

The lasting effects of jealousy have rarely been so searingly explored as in The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s most complex and inscrutable plays, one which asks a lot from any cast and director. Admittedly it’s a very bumpy ride even in the most capable hands, as when director Sam Mendes’ Bridge Project came to BAM in 2009 with a production illuminated by the magisterial Rebecca Hall as the wronged queen Hermione. 

Set in the neighboring kingdoms of Sicilia—where Shakespeare brilliantly sets up the dramatic conflict of King Leontes’ unhinged accusations against his faithful (and pregnant) Hermione of infidelity—and Bohemia, The Winter’s Tale is filled with betrayals and deaths, humor and heartbreak, reunions and even a resurrection of sorts, along with what might be the most famous—or infamous—stage direction in all of theater.

At the Delacorte, director Daniel Sullivan lingers over too many scenes, making it an exceedingly slow-going evening (this staging lasts 3 hours and 20 minutes), especially in the ponderous Sicilia scenes. Even a first-rate actor like Raúl Esparza intoning Leontes’ lengthy and self-justifying monologues about why he wants his pregnant wife put to death for treason can’t move things along. Conversely, the boisterousness of rustic Bohemia—personified by the rogue Autolycus (an amusing but overdone Steven Skybell)—is underscored with a wearying bluntness; a little of this sort of “fun” goes a long way.

On the plus side, Sullivan has Matthew Eby, who plays Leontes and Hermione’s tragic child Mamillius, also play Time, which gives the play’s crucial jump of 16 years a new twist. Sullivan pulls off the inevitable “exit, pursued by a bear” moment so cleverly that some members of the audience missed it completely, and he adroitly stages the final coup de theatre that, for better or worse, is what most audiences remember about The Winter’s Tale. 

The acting, aside from Esparza, is a mixed bag. Marsha Stephanie Blake makes a forceful and funny Paulina, the queen’s most honest defender, but Hermione herself is played by Lily Rabe, who gives a one-dimensional and shouty performance, robbing this viewer at least of the necessary sympathy for her fate. Rabe does, however, memorably freeze into a statue-like pose of surpassing stillness, a not unimportant aspect of her characterization. Chuck Cooper is an unalloyed delight as the Old Shepherd, and if Gilbert Owuor is a bit too stiff as Bohemia’s king Polixenes, two able young performers—Daniel Kyri and Isabela Ferrer—are full of effervescence as Polixenes’ son Florizel and Leontes and Hermione’s daughter Perdita, respectively.

Maruti Evans’ scenery, Linda Cho’s costumes, Bradley King’s lighting, Brian Ronan’s sound design and Tom Kitt’s music all handsomely contribute to this bumpy but entertaining night of theater in Central Park.

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Romeo and Juliet” at the Delacorte Theater

Romeo and Juliet

Written by William Shakespeare; Spanish translations by Alfredo Michel Modenessi

Choreography by Mayte Natalio; directed by Saheem Ali

Performances through June 28, 2026

Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York City

publictheater.org

Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens in Romeo and Juliet (photo: Joan Marcus)

At the Delacorte Theater every summer, the play’s usually not the thing. Instead, Shakespeare is often secondary to the busyness onstage, as director Saheem Ali’s Romeo and Juliet vividly demonstrates. In Ali’s staging, Verona, Italy, is now Nueva Verona, a bilingual town on the U.S.-Mexico border where the Capulets and the Montagues live and where a wall has been built on which protestors from the Montague clan spray paint anti-ICE slogans (the Capulets are pro-ICE, natch).

Against this artificially heightened backdrop, the doomed romance of our star-cross’d lovers is rather uneventful, even trivial. The director must also sense this, since he has also rather desperately added a portentous trio of masked spectres who represent death as they hover about the denizens and gravestones strewn about Maruti Evans’ spooky cemetery set. (Also hovering, somewhat more pretentiously, are outsized statutes of what looks to be Jesus’ mother Mary as well as a skeleton behind the large onstage wall.)

Ali’s direction can’t overcome the inherent contradiction of stuffing extraneous bits into the play yet not trusting those additions enough to embrace a true reimagining. Some of the text is spoken in (unsubtitled) Spanish, which may be authentic to the changed setting and the unbridgeable chasm between the two families—the lower-class Montagues speak it, the upper-class Capulets don’t—but having the two lovers speak Shakespeare’s most elevated love language in another language erases the original poetry’s beauty.

Juliet’s nurse is played by the capable Dierdre O’Connell as an unwanted mugging in the park, which Ali surely was after—so is the audience, which hoots and hollers at her every raised eyebrow. There are a few performers, like Francis Jue (Lawrence), Caleb Joshua Eberhardt (Mercutio) and Lachanze (who gets to sing as Lady Capulet), who are better at balancing the overacting that Delacorte audiences respond to with slightly more nuance. 

This bloodless Romeo and Juliet comes to intermittent life through the chemistry of the leads. Daniel Bravo Hernández is a dashing Romeo and Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens believably makes Juliet a giggling teen and a maturing young woman. Both also speak fluent Spanish (in Alfredo Michel Modenessi’s translation) so they can often convey Shakespeare’s emotions without subtitles—but even they are defeated by Ali’s lazy direction of the famous balcony scene, the most forgettable I’ve yet seen. 

As so often at the Delacorte, what’s most memorable is not from Shakespeare: Oana Botez’ dazzling costumes, especially in the pivotal ball sequence; Christopher Akerlind’s canny lighting; and Mayte Natalio’s energetic choreography. But the messy ending, in which the two grieving families agree to drop their long-standing differences (even though the wall still sits imposingly behind them), makes little sense in this context. That may be why each Delacorte performance ends with a real-life wedding led by Jue, who is an ordained officiant of the Universal Life Church: witnessing an actual celebration of marriage might help audiences forget that Shakespeare’s teenage newlyweds die onstage. 

November '25 Digital Week III

Streaming Releases of the Week 

Anniversary 

(Lionsgate)

A political film that demands to be treated seriously is a rarity nowadays, but this apocalyptic drama, slickly directed by Jan Komasa from a hamfisted script by Lori Rosene-Gambino, pretends to be a daring cautionary tale when it’s only a pedestrian treatment of how a sea change in American politics (called, blandly, “the change”) takes its toll on an affluent family. The country is turned upside down along with the Taylors, but despite politically motivated killings and a suicide bombing, little of it rings true or plausible, mainly because it fails at being clinical and probing. Convincing performances by Diane Lane (mom), Kyle Chandler (dad), Zoey Deutsch, McKenna Grace and Madeline Brewer (daughters), Dylan O’Brien (son), and Phoebe Dynevor (son’s wife and main catalyst) can only do so much. 

Frankenstein 

(Netflix)

Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic thriller remains unnerving and relevant, with movie adaptations as far flung as James Whale’s 1931 talkie that made a star of monster Boris Karloff and Mel Brooks’ explosively funny but faithful parody-cum-homage, 1974’s Young Frankenstein. Now Guillermo del Toro lumbers into view with a typically overwrought, stuffed-to-the-gills adaptation whose elaborate visuals makes it seem as if we’re watching a video game. Bluntly directed with a sledgehammer, the film evaporates from memory as soon as it’s over, stranding good performers as Jacob Elordi (monster), Oscar Isaac (doctor) and Mia Goth (love interest). 

Vindication Swim 

(Brilliant Pictures)

The story of Mercedes Gleitze—a young Englishwoman who was the first female to swim the English Channel in 1927, then tried to do it again when her achievement was questioned—is certainly inspiring, and director/writer Elliott Hasler milks it for all its worth in this entertaining if conventional biopic. As Mercedes, Kirsten Callaghan is highly impressive both in and out of the water, and the era’s anti-woman, pro-white male politics makes for a good antagonist, yet this could have been so much more memorable than it turns out to be.  

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

The Conjuring—Last Rites 

(Warner Bros)

This latest (and last?) dramatization of the pioneering paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren’s exploits with malevolent hauntings uses the same blueprint as the series’ three earlier entries, but Michael Chaves’ overly fussy direction makes this all too familiar as its 2 hours and 15 minutes drag unnecessarily. On the plus side, there’s solid acting by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warrens and well-cast support from Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy and others as the affected Smurl family. There’s a superior UHD transfer; extras include on-set featurettes and interviews.

Howards End 

(Cohen Film Collection)

The peak of the uneven James Ivory-Ismail Merchant-Ruth Prawer Jhabvala team’s career was this absorbing 1992 adaptation of E.M. Forster’ classic novel about the shifting relations and attitudes among the different classes in Edwardian England: it’s old-fashioned filmmaking done so well that it’s transfixing to watch. Ivory’s directing and Jhabvala’s writing were never equaled by them before or after, while the cast—Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Vanessa Redgrave, for starters—is flawless. The film has a spectacular film-like sheen in 4K; extras include a new audio commentary, vintage Ivory and Merchant interviews,  and on-set interviews and featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Strauss—Intermezzo 

(Naxos)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote 15 operas—among them classics Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella and Capriccio—but this talky drama based on his personal life has never really caught on, despite lovely music and a wonderful lead role for the soprano playing a famous conductor’s wife, whose complicated relationship with her husband makes her seek out an affair. Tobias Kratzer’s 2024 Berlin State Opera staging is set in the present day, which neither harms nor helps the storytelling—happily, the orchestra and conductor Donald Runnicles are in fine form, and, as Christine, Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson gives the towering portrayal the opera needs to succeed. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.   

The Island Closest to Heaven 

(Cult Epics)

Morimura Katsura’s story about Mari, a Japanese teenager visiting the ravishingly beautiful islands of New Catalonia, becomes, in director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s capable hands, a tender character study that is the opposite of his earlier, often delirious films House and School in the Crosshairs. Buoyed by an accomplished, understated performance by Tomoyo Harada as Mari, this is a  modest, satisfying drama. There’s a good hi-def transfer; extras include an audio commentary and making-of featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Rachmaninoff/Elgar—The Bells/Falstaff 

(Harmonia Mundi)

Two works inspired by two great American and English writers make up this terrific disc, starting with The Bells, a choral symphony by Sergei Rachmaninoff whose texts have been freely adapted from poems of Edgar Allan Poe—the creative fusion of the Russian composer’s rich melodies and American author’s unsettling imagery results in a truly unique work. Edward Elgar and William Shakespeare are a less surprising combo, and Elgar’s symphonic study about the Bard’s wondrous comic creation Sir John Falstaff is rollicking and contemplative by turns. Vasily Petrenko leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in an outstanding Falstaff, and the Philharmonia Chorus and three fine soloists contribute to a superb version of The Bells. 

Grace Williams—Works for Orchestra 

(Lyrita)

Welsh composer Grace Williams (1906-77)—barely known on this side of the Atlantic, at least—wrote attractive music in various genres, and this disc is a worthwhile primer to anyone (like me) heretofore unfamiliar with her music. Williams’ shimmering violin concerto has a persuasive soloist in Geneva Lewis; her supple Sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra sounds exquisite in soloist Clare Hammond’s hands. On the concerti and brooding Elegy for string orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales sounds remarkably cohesive, considering there’s a different conductor for each work.

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Twelfth Night” at the Delacorte Theater

Twelfth Night

Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Saheem Ali

Performances through September 14, 2025

Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY

publictheater.org

The cast of Twelfth Night (photo: Joan Marcus)

My first-ever Central Park Shakespeare production was in 1989: Twelfth Night was a star-studded mess with Michelle Pfeiffer as a ravishing Olivia and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio a winning Viola/Cesario, but the rest was a motley crew including Jeff Goldblum, Fisher Stevens and Stephen Collins. Two decades later, Daniel Sullivan’s soggy 2009 Central Park Twelfth Night at least had a wonderful Anne Hathaway as Viola/Cesario; but tentative performances by Raul Esparza as Orsino and Audra McDonald as Olivia dragged it down. And the inconsistent Shaina Taub musicalization, which was at the Delacorte in 2016 and 2018, was anchored by the dynamic Nikki M. James’ Viola/Cesario.

Saheem Ali’s new production of the Bard’s dazzling comedy of errors, mistaken identities and the vagaries of love also introduces a revitalized Delacorte Theater. Actually, the theater doesn’t look much different, as most of the updating was done to the performers’ backstage digs and the amount of machinery needed for scene changes. (And yes, the nearby restrooms have been given a welcomed makeover.)

What’s onstage is the usual clash of acting styles, hit-and-miss directorial interventions and unnecessary additions to Shakespeare’s script that mark this pleasant evening under the stars—a gorgeous New York night like the one at the performance I attended helps compensate for what’s lacking. 

Ali announces his intentions from the start: at the rear of the stage, huge letters spell out the play’s cheeky subtitle, What You Will, wittily created by designer Maruti Evans and illuminated brightly by Bradley King. The cast walks on- and offstage near the letters, and Ali delivers a few visual puns, as when Sir Toby Belch (a memorably sardonic John Ellison Conlee) walks off saying “Ay?” while pointedly looking at the A in WHAT, and Sandra Oh—an otherwise unaffecting Olivia—lounges near the O in YOU. (A later scene where four characters hide behind a tree that is just four letters spelling TREE is far less felicitous.)

Ali has cut the play to 100 minutes sans intermission, which speeds up the action among the various subplots too quickly, muting the comic and dramatic highlights along with Shakespeare’s brilliantly conceived reveal. Of course, the hijinks of Toby, Andrew Aguecheek (a funny but overdone Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Olivia’s maid Maria (a game Daphne Rubin-Vega) take center stage, with extra doses of would-be hilarity the playwright never thought of: Toby even snorts coke during one of their comic binges.

Malvolio, the self-centered servant whose loss of dignity and nervous breakdown can be blamed on the aforementioned trio, is played sharply by Peter Dinklage, although he only rarely approaches Philip Bosco’s unforgettable turn in the role, the highlight of Nicholas Hytner’s waterlogged 1998 Lincoln Center Theater revival. 

But Ali’s most interesting addition—having the separated twins Viola (the charming Lupita Nyong’o) and Sebastian (one-dimensional Junior Nyong’o, Lupita’s brother) speak Swahili as outsiders in Illyria, actual lines from the play—is marred by them sprinkling the Swahili in their dialogue throughout, so when they speak it to each other upon being reunited at the end it’s not as touching as it would have been if we hadn’t heard it several times earlier. 

Turning Feste the clown into a rapping and singing troubadour, and embodied agreeably by Moses Sumney, is a decent idea, while wrapping up the show with a curtain call in which the entire cast is clad in Oana Botez’ sumptuous, eye-catching costumes is something that can only work at the Delacorte. 

Off-Broadway Play Review—Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” in Brooklyn

Henry IV

Written by William Shakespeare; adapted by Dakin Matthews

Directed by Eric Tucker

Performances through March 2, 2025

Theatre for a New Audience, 262 Ashland Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

tfana.org

       James Udom, Cara Ricketts, Jay O. Sanders, Slate Holmgren and Elan Zafir in Henry IV (photo: Gerry Goodstein)

When I saw Dakin Matthews’ canny distillation of the two parts of Henry IV at Lincoln Center Theater in 2003, I found it the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen in New York (and still do)—Jack O’Brien adroitly directed a star-studded cast headed by Kevin Kline as Falstaff, and Matthews’ adaptation subtly distilled the essence of both works into one absorbing four-hour play.

Matthews’ Henry IV returns in a far different staging at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. Unlike O’Brien’s lush, almost cinematic production, Eric Tucker directs a smaller-scaled version in the round. There are drawbacks to this approach, since the action takes place among dozens of characters in several far-flung locales, including the king’s court, London taverns and a battlefield. The cramped stage area is acknowledged by actors sitting in seats among the audience when not performing, which fosters more intimacy among spectators and performers. And performing in the round by definition has actors facing away from a part of the audience at all times, which has a tendency to swallow important dialogue.

Nicole E. Lang’s lighting illuminates the proceedings on Jimmy Stubbs’ minimalist set both dramatically and psychologically, while Catherine Zuber and AC Gottlieb’s costumes pleasingly mix period and modern. Tucker nicely paces the drama among the king’s council discussions, the rebels’ machinations and the lively tavern interludes among London’s lowlifes. He has also double-cast several roles, so some performers change costumes and become other characters right onstage. It’s a diverting effect, but it also points up the difficulty of doing the Bard on a budget, since such busyness at times detracts from the play itself.

Of those taking on multiple roles, best are the charismatic Jordan Bellow, who adroitly shuttles between Prince Hal’s brother John and Hal’s partner in frivolity Ned Poins; and the winning Cara Ricketts, who makes both a touching Lady Percy and a rollicking Doll Tearsheet. Matthews himself—who played a supporting role in the 2003 Lincoln Center production—gives the title monarch a sturdy royal presence. 

Shakespeare is most interested in the relationship between Hal and his friend, the braggart, womanizer, and self-styled wit named Sir John Falstaff. When Hal prods Falstaff to even greater heights of self-delusion, it makes Falstaff simultaneously funnier and more sorrowful. Elijah Jones finds a nice balance between Hal’s foolishness and budding maturity, and Jay O. Sanders follows in Kevin Kline’s large footsteps to create a Falstaff who is both outsized and normal, buffoonish yet always sympathetic. 

Near the end, Hal—now Henry V after his father’s death—coldly banishes his erstwhile friend and sparring partner from the kingdom; Sanders plays this moment with shock and resignation but also a sliver of pride that the young man Falstaff believes he himself has led to this moment has, indeed, met the moment. This is not an essential Shakespeare staging but it is entertaining, which nowadays is nothing to sneeze at.

August '23 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Passages

(MUBI)

Ira Sachs has made sympathetic and insightful portraits of relationships, but his latest is not among them. In Paris, selfish German film director Tomas leaves his longtime English husband Martin after falling for Agathe, a young French woman from around the set whom he has sex with after the wrap party. Soon, however, he comes back to Martin—then back to Agathe…rinse repeat. There’s no denying Tomas is a manipulative narcissist, but the response to his antics by Martin and Agathe (who gets pregnant immediately, of course) are so preposterous that they become risible. Very little of this is in any way fascinating—even the lengthy and explicit sex scenes are quite boring—and the acting is a mixed bag. Adele Exarchopoulos is always an honest and humane performer, Ben Wishaw does what he can with an impossible part and Frank Rogowski trots out his tiresomely surly number whatever the role calls for. 

Lady Killer 

The Strange Mister Victor 

(Grasshopper)

Two films by the masterly but barely known French director Jean Grémillon have been fully restored, each showcasing the filmmaker’s singular observational skill within the context of intelligently tweaked genres. 1937’s romantic saga Lady Killer stars the great Jean Gabin as a seducer who falls in love with his latest conquest, played by the exquisite Mireille Balin. The following year, Grémillon’s crime thriller The Strange Mister Victor stars actor Raimu as a shopkeeper working secretly for the underworld whose criminal activities soon catch up to him. Here’s hoping more of Grémillon’s features are restored and rereleased.

Love Life 

(Oscilloscope)

Like his last drama, the diverting A Girl Missing, Japanese director Koji Fukada tells a downbeat story that’s filled with redemption in his usual slowly evolving manner, anchored by Fumino Kimura’s elegantly restrained performance as a woman who, after a tragic family accident, starts to care for her former husband, who’s deaf and homeless. As is the case once again here, Fukada makes messy but heartfelt films that are closely observed and deal with sorrowful subject matter quite convincingly.

Mob Land 

(Saban)

Writer-director Nicholas Maggio said that Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs made him want to make similar movies when he saw it as a teen in the early ‘90s—but on the basis of this turgid crime drama, whatever originality Tarantino brought to the genre is completely missing in Maggio’s hands. Unlucky rural Louisiana robbers are tracked down by a brutal New Orleans mob fixer, and the bodies start piling up. Stephen Dorff has fun playing the horrible hitman but John Travolta, Shiloh Fernandez and Ashley Benson are defeated by their director’s caricatures and his unoriginal melodramatic flourishes.

Winter Kills 

(Rialto)

In this completely whacked-out 1979 political thriller-cum-satire, Jeff Bridges plays the younger half-brother of an assassinated president trying to find out who killed him—but he’s up against the deep state, which might include his own father, a Joe Kennedy-type tycoon played with gusto by John Huston. Director William Richert, adapting a novel by Richard Condon, is somehow able to walk the tight rope between straightforward drama and jokey lunacy, although another 20 minutes would flesh out the contorted conspiracies a la The Parallax View. Bridges is in his usual fine form and the colorful ensemble includes the smashingly good Belinda Bauer as an atypical femme fatale.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Fast X 

(Universal)

The 10th “fast and furious” feature might have some fury but not much that’s fast in a lumbering two-plus hour adventure that repeats the car chase/close combat sequences done to death in the series’ other entries. Director Louis Leterrier makes things fancier with some amusing destruction of Rome, particularly at the Spanish Steps, but with so many random characters being introduced the usual cast can’t get any traction. Even luminary guest stars like Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno and Charlize Theron have embarrassingly little to do. The film looks terrifically detailed in 4K; extras include over an hour’s worth of featurettes and a gag reel.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Broken Mirrors 

(Cult Epics)

In Dutch director Marleen Gorris’ provocative 1984 drama, several female sex workers at a brothel must deal daily with their anonymous, enervating, antagonistic male clients; meanwhile, one of those men is killing random women and has kidnapped a housewife off the street. As her other films (such as A Question of Silence and Antonia’s Line) have shown, Gorris is unafraid to bluntly explore and raise unsettling questions about what it means to be a woman in a brutish man’s world. There’s a decent new restoration; extras are a commentary by film scholar Peter Verstraten and archival interview with sex worker Margo St. James.

Kill Shot 

(Well Go USA)

Shot in the beautiful, rugged terrain of Montana’s Big Sky country, Ari Novak’s thriller doesn’t have much else to recommend it, beginning with its by-the-numbers plot about a grieving Navy seal accompanying a young woman to bury her father’s ashes finds trouble after stumbling on a cache of cash murderous terrorists are after. Novak stages the shoot-‘em-up sequences with little distinction, while his actors can barely read their lines. Leads Rib Hillis and Rachel Cook were obviously cast for how good they look sans clothing—Rib is ripped while Rachel is often stripped down to her bra and underwear—which might make for a fun drinking game to get through the 90 minutes of amateurish storytelling that desperately throws in easily guessable twists to wrap up. The film looks great on Blu, at least.

Other People’s Children 

(Music Box)

Winner of the César (the French Oscar) for best actress for her brilliant performance in Revoir Paris as a mass-shooting survivor, Virginie Efira performs a similar miracle in this intensely intimate study as Rachel, a childless schoolteacher who loves Leila, the young daughter of her boyfriend Ali (Roschdy Zem), as if she was her own—until his ex-wife initiates a reunion that might squeeze Rachel out of their lives altogether. Rebecca Zlotowski’s delicate writing and directing provide Efira with another showcase for her emotionally shattering acting; ideally, she should have won the César for both of her draining portrayals. There’s an excellent Blu-ray transfer; extras include a featurette with Zlotowski, Efira and Zem interviews as well as a Toronto Film Festival Q&A with Zlotowski and Efira.

CD Release of the Week

Sounds and Sweet Airs—A Shakespeare Songbook 

(BIS)

Soprano Carolyn Simpson and pianist Joseph Middleton’s recital discs are always meticulously curated—and their latest might be their most impressive and enjoyable yet. They’re joined by baritone Roderick Williams for a wide-ranging literary and musical journey through songs written to texts in Shakespeare’s plays. The three artists move through three centuries of great composers—programmed as a prologue, acts I-V and an epilogue—from the 18th century’s Thomas Arne to two powerful 21st-century pieces: Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s “They Bore Him Barefaced on a Bier” from Hamlet and Hannah Kendall’s song-cycle Rosalind based on texts from As You Like It, in which Simpson not only sings stirringly (alone and duetting with an equally strong Williams) but also plays the music box and harmonica. We also get the chance to hear composers tackling the same text, like The Tempest’s “Full Fathom Five,” set by John Ireland (as a duet!) and by Michael Tippett (for baritone). My favorites are settings by Vaughan Williams, Parry and Honegger, along with Rosalind, where Kendall captures the deepest emotions in Shakespeare’s luminous poetry. 

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Hamlet” in Central Park

Hamlet

Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Kenny Leon

Performances through August 6, 2023

Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY

publictheater.org

Ato Blankson-Wood and Solea Pfeiffer in Hamlet (photo: Joan Marcus)

Shakespeare in Central Park has always been a crap shoot. Since the overriding ethos is to please 2000 people who have gotten free tickets on a steamy summer night in Manhattan, even good stagings are not quite as good as they should be. Rarely is there a truly great production at the Delacorte Theater, and Hamlet, despite good performances and interesting directorial touches, strains to be decent.

Kenny Leon has trimmed the play—as most directors do—to a fleet 2 hours and 45 minutes, mostly eliminating the political and martial subplots. This streamlines the play to concentrate on Prince Hamlet’s strained relationships with his mother, who has married his uncle (her brother-in-law) right after the funeral of his father, the king, and with his sometime girlfriend Ophelia, whose own father, Polonius, and brother, Laertes, are also thorns in his side. Basically, it drops material that the Delacorte audience might find puzzling on Beowulf Boritt’s cleverly off-kilter and apparently post-apocalyptic (or post-pandemic) set that’s populated by a trashed Stacey Abrams election sign, abandoned Range Rover and a portrait of Hamlet’s dad in an American army uniform.

Usually, the most annoying Central Park bits are those shoehorned in with no regard for whether they make any sense: and, of course, these are often the biggest crowd-pleasers. It’s no different in Hamlet, as songs by Jason Michael Webb—nicely sung by members of the cast, especially the creamy-voiced Solea Pfeiffer, who also makes a quite sympathetic Ophelia—are heard throughout, most damagingly at the end, destroying the emotional catharsis of Horatio’s immortal words after Hamlet’s death.

Otherwise, Leon paces the play well, delicately balancing the undercurrents of melancholy and black humor, like the rollicking gravedigger scene, played with knowing hilarity by both Ato Blankson-Wood as Hamlet and Greg Hildreth as the gravedigger. Blankson-Wood, who at times seems too young for such an overwhelming role, is nevertheless poised onstage, reciting Shakespeare’s poetry as if he actually knows its meaning, unlike certain other actors on the Delacorte stage. 

It’s only in the ill-conceived ghost scene, in which Samuel L. Jackson, of all people, intones the thunderous voice of the murdered king and in which Leon, for some reason, has the dead father’s spirit enter Hamlet, who then lip-synchs the ghost’s lines as if it’s an outtake from The Exorcist, does Blankson-Wood overdo it, with risible eye-rolling and hamming it up that’s at odds with the rest of his confident performance.

There’s also good acting from John Douglas Thompson, who, as Hamlet’s murderous uncle turned stepfather Claudius, always enunciates beautifully; the formidable Lorraine Toussaint as Hamlet’s confused mother Gertrude; and a vibrant Warner Miller as a hip-hop Horatio. Less good is Daniel Pearce, who, as Polonius, pushes too hard for laughs in every line, even though Shakespeare has already written him as a buffoonish windbag. Unsurprisingly, Pearce is the audience favorite.

Still, this is a competent, coherent Hamlet, which, for a summer night at Central Park, just might be enough.

Off-Broadway Play Reviews—Shakespeare Onstage

Richard III
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Garry Hynes
Performances through November 23, 2019
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 524 West 59th Street, NY, NY
lincolncenter.org/white-light-festival

Macbeth
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by John Doyle
Performances through December 15, 2019
Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street, NY, NY
classicstage.org

Aaron Monaghan in Richard III (photo: Richard Termine)

There are many ways to perform Shakespeare, as two current productions demonstrate with varying degrees of success. Garry Hynes returns with her latest DruidShakespeare staging, Richard III. The story of the English king, whose deformity is as much sociopathic as it is physical, is filled with soliloquies in which Richard ingratiates himself with the audience, forcing us to engage with and even be charmed by him as he goes about committing murder and other atrocities on his way to the throne.

Shakespeare’s words are such that even Lady Anne—whose beloved husband was mercilessly killed by Richard—inevitably falls for Richard’s wooing. But Hynes has made her otherwise impressive Richard, Aaron Monaghan, overdo the faux friendliness and approach “wink wink nudge nudge” territory which, rather than bringing us uncomfortably close to Richard, makes it all rather risible.

Death in the form of a skull literally hangs over the proceedings in a box, an obvious and unnecessary visual from the otherwise no-nonsense director. Hynes’ other invention is a pit at the front of the stage—the greyscale set is by Francis O’Connor—in which the bodies of the victims of Richard’s murderous parade pile up, one by one. (Some of the executions are done with an anachronistic stun gun.) It’s inevitable that, after the climactic battle, Richard’s body is the last to fall into the pit.

Hynes paces the action nicely while most of the performers do well by her direction, especially Garrett Lombard as Hastings, Rory Nolan as Buckingham and Siobhán Cullen as Lady Anne. There’s also the visceral flourish of having Shakespeare’s poetry intoned by Irish actors, some with thick brogues, instead of the usual Queen’s English or flat American accents.

But for all its straightforwardness, this Richard III is most memorable for its lead actor’s lameness. In fact, Monaghan’s limp is so pronounced and authentic I was worried for his physical well-being by the end of the play.

Nadia Bowers and Corey Stoll in Macbeth (photo: Joan Marcus)

Director John Doyle has put his own stamp on many a classic musical, especially those of Stephen Sondheim. Now he’s attempting to do the same with Shakespeare, but streamlining what’s already an elegant and brilliantly paced tragedy like Macbeth into an hour and 45 minutes sans intermission is to sabotage what makes Shakespeare great.

Doyle’s other conceit is to have a cast of nine play all the parts, so the weird sisters become a disembodied—and eerily effective—chorus. But having such a small cast on a bare wooden set lays bare Doyle’s deficient adaptation, especially when Corey Stoll’s stolid Macbeth takes center stage.

Stoll is also outacted by his wife, Nadia Bowers, as Lady Macbeth. Admittedly, hers is the juicier part, but she gets real mileage out of it: her sleepwalking scene, brief though it is, is the most resonant in the play. But since Doyle’s Macbeth flies by so quickly there’s no chance of following the tragic arc which Shakespeare so marvelously develops, leaving a sense of glimpsing mere highlights, like Cliff’s Notes for audiences that haven’t seen the whole play.  

September '19 Digital Week III

Blu-rays of the Week 

Shakespeare—The Roman Plays 

(Opus Arte)

This boxed set collects recent Royal Shakespeare Company stagings of four Bard tragedies at Stratford-upon-Avon. Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare’s most politically relevant works, gets a decent modern-dress production by director Angus Jackson, with a stentorian Sope Dirisu in the title role. Titus Andronicus, maybe his worst play, provides a visceral jolt in Blanche McIntyre’s 2017 modern-dress production, with Hannah Morrish keeping her dignity as the unfortunate Lavinia and David Troughton making a stentorian Titus. Julius Caesar, one of his most potent tragedies, is given a compelling staging by director Jackson, with strong acting by Andrew Woodall (Caesar), Alex Waldmann (Brutus), James Corrigan (Marc Antony) and Morrish, whose Portia more than holds her own. And Antony and Cleopatra, one of his most complex, least-produced plays, is given an accomplished staging by Iqbal Khan, with a lackadaisical Antony Byrne as Antony but a lively Josette Simon as Cleopatra. On all discs, hi-def video and audio are first-rate; extras are commentaries, interviews and a featurette.

Beatrice Cenci 

(Unitel)

Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-96), a German-Jewish composer whose music was banned by the Nazis, has been triumphantly rediscovered, and this opera—composed in 1949-50—is a prime example of his accessible but provocative style. Goldschmidt’s splendidly paced account of a young 17th century Italian woman condemned to death with her mother for poisoning her brutally deranged father is filled with melodious and dramatic music worthy of Puccini. Last summer’s Bergenz, Italy, staging, by director Johannes Erath, unfortunately wallows in grotesque visuals—especially egregious in close-up—that make it more like a freak show than an absorbing tragedy. Still, it’s beautifully performed by a committed cast and orchestra, and the hi-def video and audio are first-rate.

The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob 

(Film Movement Classics)

Gerard Oury’s dizzying 1974 comedy was a big hit in France and abroad, but its claim to fame is that it’s so broad, so banal, and so basic in its humor—a bigot and his Arab captor disguise themselves as rabbis to elude assassins and the police—that it’s unsurprising that, watching it now, one wonders what the fuss is about. There’s certainly much energy to it, starting out in Manhattan and moving to Paris, and the cast is enjoyable in a frenetic way, but it plays out like a misfired Mel Brooks-early Woody Allen hybrid. The film looks good in hi-def; lone extra is an interview with co-writer Daniele Thompson.

Supergirl—Complete 4th Season 

(Warner Bros)

Warner Bros. provided me with a free copy of this disc for review.

The fourth season of Supergirl explicitly mirrors what’s happening on the current political scene, as anti-alien sentiment swells in Gotham City and Kara, aka Supergirl (a charming Melissa Benoit), must attempt to win the war on two fronts: as a reporter using the press as a bulwark against fake news, and as a superhero—albeit an alien—battling the villains who have used the divisive atmosphere to make their attacks. The season’s 22 episodes look striking on Blu-ray; extras include deleted scenes; an hour of highlights from 2018’s San Diego Comic-Con; featurettes; gag reel; and all three crossover episodes of Elseworlds.

4K/UHD of the Week 

Daybreakers 

(Lionsgate)

As a bloodsucker flick, 2009’s Daybreakers tries something different: in a world inhabited by vampires, humans are the outcasts. But this clever conceit can’t sustain an entire movie, which goes haywire long before its predictable ending. Juicy performances, topped by Willem Dafoe’s strangely resonant resistance fighter and Sam Neill and Ethan Hawke as very different kinds of vampires, help. So do the diverting visuals of the Spierig brothers’ direction, which are miraculously recreated by the 4K transfer, which is simply outstanding. Extras include a comprehensive two-hour making-of documentary and a short film by the brothers, The Big Picture.

DVD of the Week

The Good Fight—Complete 3rd Season 

(CBS/Paramount)

The third season—coming on the heels of last season’s insanely world-shattering developments—finds lawyer Diane Lockhart setting her sights on an even bigger criminal: Donald tRump. The series makes no bones about itching for a fight with the incompetent chief executive, and if it’s at times too didactic even for those who agree with the political sentiments, a stellar cast—led by the peerless Christine Baranski, of course, but also starring Cash Jumbo, Delroy Lindo, Audra McDonald, Michael Sheen, Gina Gershon and Jane Curtin—keeps one’s attention riveted throughout the 10 episodes. Extras comprise a gag reel, deleted scenes, and the first episode of the series Star Trek—Discovery.  

CDs of the Week 

Respighi—Piano Music, Volume 1 (Toccata Classics)

Szymanowski—Piano Works 

(Naxos)

Two 20th century masters known for their voluptuous orchestral works—Italian Ottorino Respighi and Pole Karol Szymanowski—displayed their versatility and eclecticism with music in other genres, including solo piano works. Two new discs show off the composers’ rigor and craft at the keyboard, starting with Respighi’s early piano works on Toccata Classics, including a sonata and Three Preludes on Gregorian Melodies, both anything but apprentice works and played with alternating strength and restraint by Giovanna Gatto. Szymanowski filled even his solo music with ecstatic exoticism, which his two sets of Etudes demonstrate on a new Naxos disc, along with his sublime Masques, a three-movement sonata in all but name. Andrea Vivanet displays his affinity for these formidable pieces, and one works looks forward to more volumes by both pianists.

Shakespeare in the Park Review—“Coriolanus” in Central Park

Coriolanus
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Daniel Sullivan
Performances through August 11, 2019
Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org

Jonathan Cake in Coriolanus (photo: Joan Marcus)

I had hopes for Daniel Sullivan’s Central Park production of Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare’s most explicitly political plays, whose eponymous protagonist is a military man through and through, a Roman general with little thought—and even less use—for ordinary citizens. 

But Sullivan succumbs to an apparent desire to smooth out the edges of this difficult, troubling drama, flattening a richly complex psychological portrait of a fatally prideful man into a dimestore Freudian melodrama about a mama’s boy, which is not what Shakespeare intended.

From his first appearance, Gaius Martius displays his naked contempt for those who aren’t his comrades in arms. When he returns to Rome a hero after halting the advance of the hated Volscian army, he is talked into running for the office of consul by his controlling mother, Volumnia, and the friendly senator Menenius, who bestows on him the honored title of “Coriolanus.”  

But Coriolanus isn’t a politician: he can’t fake having compassion for the plebians, and when confronted by who he thinks are insolent rabble-rousers in the public and senate, he loses his temper and insults them, bemoaning how it’s fine for “crows to peck the eagles.” Unsurprisingly, popular opinion turns against him and he is banished. Angrily offering himself to Aufidius, the leader of the Volscian enemy, he joins with him to attack Rome and gain some revenge.

There are plentiful layers of conflict that Shakespeare lays out, but Sullivan is content to show everything in superficial black and white, as it were, instead of subtler shades of grey. So Coriolanus cowers when his mother Volumnia speaks, making their relationship more one-sided (and laugh-getting from an audience accustomed to being spoonfed) than it should be. That Kate Burton gives one of her most trenchant performances as Volumnia and Jonathan Cake is a curiously one-dimensional Coriolanus with a weirdly droning Rambo-like voice further makes the mother-son bond implausible.

Beowulf Boritt’s post-apocalyptic set of relentless monochromatic dullness comprises trash cans, a burnt-out car and sheets of corrugated metal, while Kaye Voyce has designed costumes of unremitting ugliness, with no differentiation between Romans and Volscians, leaders and ordinary people. Aside from Burton, only Teagle F. Bougere’s Menenius has a firm grasp of Shakespeare’s potent language. As Coriolanus’ wife, Virgilia, Nneka Okafor makes no impression; although her part is small, it’s crucial to establishing the couple’s conjugal respect. Without it, everything that comes after remains unaffecting and remote. Even Ralph Fiennes’ 2011 film, flawed in many ways, captured that crucial notion conspicuously missing from Sullivan’s impassive production.

Theater Review—Public Works' “Twelfth Night” Returns to Central Park

Twelfth Night
Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah & Shaina Taub
Directed by Oskar Eustis & Kwame Kwei-Armah
Performances through August 19, 2018
Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org

Nikki M. James and cast in Twelfth Night (photo: Joan Marcus)

For its sixth-year Central Park presentation, Public Works brings back its 2016 abridgment of Twelfth Night—Shakespeare’s lyrical comedy about separated twins and a cross-dressing heroine—which unfortunately drops far too much of the Bard’s most sublime poetry and replaces it with Shaina Taub’s serviceable doggerel accompanied by her pleasant if unremarkable tunes.

Taub also sings several of her songs as Feste the clown while leading a swingin’ onstage house band. As usual with Public Works, several community groups from throughout the five boroughs join the cast of professionals and amateurs for an entertaining jumble—a real mailman delivered a letter to the full-of-himself servant Malvolio (played with amusing smugness by Andrew Kober)—as Shakespeare’s isle of Illyria becomes a swirl of bright colors and sparkling costumes courtesy of set designer Rachel Hauck and costume designer Andrea Hood. 

Luckily, the dozens of onstage performers are turned into a cohesive mass by Lorin Lontarro’s clever choreography to make this a satisfying communal event. Conspicuously missing are many of Shakespeare’s offhand insights, but the foolproof clowning subplot is highlighted by the guffaw-inducing Sir Toby Belch of Shuler Hensley, who would be an asset in any Twelfth Night.  

The same goes for Nikki M. James, who returns with her winning portrayal of Viola, aka Orsino’s male servant Cesario, soon confused with her lost twin brother Sebastian. In addition to being a dynamic singer, James is also a superlative actress who deserves to show off her chops in an unabridged production of Shakespeare’s sublime comedy.

July '18 Digital Week I

Blu-rays of the Week 

The Virgin Spring 
(Criterion)

Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1960 chamber film is a stark drama based on a medieval folk tale about a young woman whose rape-murder prompts a fresh-water spring to appear where she was killed. Somber and brutal, but in Bergman’s masterly hands, it’s also an intelligent and perceptive look at guilt and revenge, with the usual forceful acting by such superlative Swedes as Max von Sydow, Gunnel Lindblom and Birgitta Pettersson. The new Criterion hi-def transfer makes Sven Nykvist’s B&W photography even more transfixing; extras are a commentary, Ang Lee intro, 2005 interviews with Lindblom and Pettersson and a 1975 Bergman audio interview.

La Campana Sommersa/The Sunken Bell 
(Naxos)

Italian master Ottorino Respighi composed his dramatically diffuse but musically succulent opera in 1927, and like his other stage works, it’s rarely performed; happily, this 2016 Cagliari (Italy) production lets us reevaluate the stageworthiness of one of his most beautiful scores. Conducted by Donato Denzetti, who superbly leads the Cagliari Theater orchestra and chorus, this bizarre, surreal work has exemplary lead performances and attractive colors in the music and Pier Francisco Maestrini’s staging. The hi-def audio and video are excellent.

Lucio Silia 

(BelAir Classiques)

One of Mozart’s earliest operas to keep a tenuous hold in the repertoire is this tragic historical drama set during the Roman Empire. In his elegant 2017 Madrid production, director Claus Guth keeps things moving with studied elegance, which helps the musty plot keep its hold on viewers. Conductor Ivor Bolton impressively leads the Teatro Real orchestra and chorus, and the top-notch performers are led by Patricia Petibon, a fiery soprano who sings eloquently and acts with sheer verve. The hi-def video and audio are also impressive.

Superfly
(Warner Archive)

Gordon Parks Jr.’s 1972 blaxploitation classic is definitely of its era, set in a rundown Harlem where a drug dealer looks for one last score so he can retire. Despite (because of?) its un-P.C. rawness, it works handily, thanks to Ron O’Neal in the lead and Sheila Frazier as his faithful girlfriend. On the soundtrack is Curtis Mayfield’s classic soul—Mayfield and his band even have a scintillating club performance cameo. A grainy period look dominates on Blu-ray; extras are a commentary, interviews and retrospective making-of documentary.

Titus Andronicus 

(Opus Arte)

Often considered Shakespeare’s worst play, this early effort has more eyes-look-away gore and gruesome imagery than his other works combined; still, it usually provides a visceral jolt in the theater, as Blanche McIntyre’s 2017 modern-dress production from the Royal Shakespeare Company shows. The lopping off of limbs, tongues and heads and the cannibalistic pies remain, but the modern dress contrasts jarringly with such brutal goings-on. Of the actors, Hannah Morrish keeps her dignity as the unfortunate Lavinia and David Troughton makes a stentorian Titus, but the juiciest parts—evil queen Tamora and even more evil moor Aaron—are played indifferently by Nia Gwynne and Stefan Adegbola. The Blu-ray has solid hi-def video and audio; extras are McIntyre’s commentary, cast and crew interviews.

Tommy Shaw—Sing for the Day 
(Eagle Rock)

The Styx guitarist and singer performed with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in Cleveland in 2016 and the infectiousness is there in the kids’ smiles as they play instruments and sing backup to Shaw and his acoustic (and occasional electric) guitar. Shaw, at age 63, is in fantastically good voice: he hits all the notes on Styx staples “Fooling Yourself,” “Boat on the River,” “Sing for the Day,” “Man in the Wilderness” and “Renegade,” and he even throws in non-Styx tunes like “Girls with Guns” and “High Enough.” Both hi-def audio and video are first-rate; lone extra is audio of four additional songs.

Tristan und Isolde 

(Unitel/C Major)

This 1981 concert of Richard Wagner’s mournfully romantic opera has Leonard Bernstein (this release commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth) leading the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra and chorus in a gripping performance. If Peter Hoffman’s Tristan lacks depth and weight, Hildegard Behrens’ Isolde is the real deal, saving her most powerful singing for the finale (which is when we want it). It’s not perfect, but it’s typical of Bernstein’s impassioned performances, when he is sweating bullets by the end. The hi-def video and audio are acceptable enough, considering the aged source material.

2 Weeks in Another Town 
(Warner Archive)

Another Hollywood behind-the-scenes exposé from director Vincente Minnelli and star Kirk Douglas (following 1952’s The Bad and the Beautiful), this 1962 drama moves the action to Rome for an intermittently absorbing exploration of backstabbing on and off the set. Kirk Douglas does well as the has-been star intent on making a comeback, and then-ingenue Daliah Lavi is a delight as the young actress he falls for, but veterans like Cyd Cherisse, Edward G. Robinson and James Gregory aren’t given a chance to do much with their hollow characters. The widescreen hi-def transfer looks sumptuous.

DVDs of the Week 

Cezanne: Portraits of a Life 
(Seventh Art Productions)

Narrated by Brian Cox, this informative and visually stunning overview of Cezanne’s life and art—with particular emphasis on the Cezanne Portraits exhibition that closes this weekend at Washington’s National Gallery of Art—is a solid appreciation of one of the 20th century’s most important (and still misunderstood) artists. As always with these Exhibition on Screen entries, the visuals are entrancing—and disappointing: the back cover touts this as being shot in 4K, but that this is only available on DVD defeats the purpose of shooting it in ultra hi-def.

Ismael’s Ghosts 
(Magnolia)

The latest from French director Arnaud Desplechin—whose films are so crammed with detail, incident, characterization and location that they resemble cinematic versions of long novels—centers on a director making a film about his estranged (and politically shady) brother, and brilliantly and effortlessly moves along separate but equally absorbing paths, both real and fake. The intrigue is especially delicious served up by a formidable cast headed by Mathieu Amalric, Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg—who gives what may be her best screen performance as our hero’s current love. It’s just too bad that such a rich, rewarding and rewatchable film is only available on DVD. Isn’t it 2018?