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Artscope Magazine | January/February 2021

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shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Actors' Shakespeare Project.

Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents: A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Multicultural Arts Center

// May/June 2017, Theatre

By James Foritano Shakespeare must have felt himself to be living in an increasingly and perilously fast-paced society when he penned A Midsummer Night’s Dream — still one of his most popular comedies in 1595-96. Earlier in that rumbustious century, England’s Henry VIII decided that he couldn’t abide an Italian pope telling him what he could and couldn’t do in his own marriage bed. So, Henry nationalized not only divorce laws but religion and all its far-reaching properties in England — thank you very much.   Actors’ Shakespeare Project is presenting Shakespeare’s masterpiece through early June in a production directed by Patrick Swanson. In this classic favorite of the season, Theseus, the duke of Athens, in Shakespeare’s parable of his own life and times, is also in a hurry to wed his intended, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Recent antagonists on the battlefield though … [Read more...] about Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents: A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Multicultural Arts Center

Alexander Platt (Laertes) and Poornima Kirby (Ophelia) by Nile Scott Shott

Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Hamlet at Boston’s Historic Church of the Covenant

// Theatre

By James Foritano Boston, MA - Once again, the Actors Shakespeare Project has found the perfect venue for their play: in this case, “Hamlet,” performed in the awesomely cavernous venue of Boston’s historic Church of the Covenant, just one long block down from the Public Garden on Newbury Street where it crosses Berkeley Street. Both the gloom and the promise of this holy ark of a building, after hours, seem so right for the atmosphere of “Hamlet.” Hamlet is that “kid with everything” sung with such wrenching sweetness in the popular song. Indeed, his mother is as beautiful as the queen she is and his father, kingly rich. Not to mention all those glittering comrades ready to entertain this prince of men’s every youthful folly or deepest passion — except, of course, a slow but steadily accelerating passion for revenge. There’s a wide pink slip in the program which mentions, … [Read more...] about Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents Hamlet at Boston’s Historic Church of the Covenant

King Richard (Doug Lockwood) and Aumerle (Paula Plum). Photograph by Stratton McCrady.

Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Richard II at Cambridge YMCA

// Theatre

By James Foritano Cambridge, Mass. - As usual, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project performed brilliantly on the stage of the Central Square YMCA in the current production of Richard II during its Feb. 21 performance. The house was fortuitously configured so that villains could be spotlighted in high places performing dastardly deeds like the strangulation, in his sleep, of the noble Gloucester. And soldiers, courtiers, priests and nobles could thread themselves though the aisles of the audience breathing hot revenge, sorrow, despair and other mightily theatrical emotions. For me, both in his acting and in his pivotal role in the action, the star was Robert Walsh’s Duke of York. The Duke’s role was to salvage not only Richard II’s throne and kingdom, but the very sanctity and awe of kingship. In the case of Richard, such a rescue mission was bound to fail. Being king in … [Read more...] about Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Richard II at Cambridge YMCA