All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise. Antony and Cleopatra is another Roman play, a hard-to-pin-down, almost true history of the later years of the doomed affair between the Roman general Mark Antony, and Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt. The historical events it is based on lead directly to the … More Shakespeare Saturday: Antony and Cleopatra
Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The Scottish is still my favourite of all Shakespeare plays. It is a Gothic tale of ambition and desire for power, the main character destroying himself through his obsession with the prophecy that one day he will become King, his obsession driven … More Shakespeare Saturday: Macbeth
On Saturday I went to see the first of my November operas, Alban Berg’s Lulu at the Coliseum. Couple days before I had seen somewhere online a picture of the Frederic Leighton House, and a weekend’s entertainment was ready – the museum, a walk around the nearby Holland Park, a quick trek to Liberty and … More A rainy day in London
Timon of Athens is a tragicomic story of a wealthy, gregarious Athenian, who is a terrible judge of character. He loses all his earthly possessions through misplaced generosity, and consequently becomes a misanthropic, histrionic recluse. It is considered another problem play, with a particularly unsatisfying denouement and slightly unfinished feel to it – it has … More Shakespeare Saturday: Timon of Athens
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child! Whenever the best Shakespeare play is chosen, King Lear usually comes first or second. Shakespeare scholar Jan Kott considers it the most modern of all Shakespeare’s plays, comparing its study of power, sibling jealousy and madness, and its dark absurdity, to the … More Shakespeare Saturday: King Lear
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 