A Year of Shakespeare

We've been quite privileged in New York to have an almost unbelievable number of Shakespeare productions in New York over the past twelve months. Two Macbeths; two Midsummer Night's Dreams; and -- wait for it -- four, yes, four, King Lears. Over the course of the last year, you could have seen the likes of Ethan Hawke, Kenneth Branagh, Orlando Bloom, Mark Rylance, Stephen Fry, and John Lithgow play some of these great roles.

Last fall alone, Regis's Shakespeare class could, in the span of one trimester, have decided between Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. Not willing to let this opportunity pass by, we decided to go to not one but two productions last year, settling upon Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. My one concern was that we were seeing two comedies. But these productions could not have been further apart. Nor, I'd argue, could they have been any better.

Twelfth Night  was the critical darling of the season, and rightly so. Rylance as Viola was spectacular, but Fry was his equal as the stern but secretly sensitive Malvolio. With its all-male, cross-dressing cast, with its candelit atmosphere, with its period costume and makeup, with its seats on the stage, Twelfth Night allowed my students to experience, as best as possible, how Shakespeare's own company might have performed at the indoor Blackfriars theatre. There was an utter fidelity in the production to both the play and the period. With the exception of perhaps amplification an the dim houselights, one could feel transported in time to 1606.

Only weeks later, we took in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the brand new Polonsky Shakespeare Center, home for the Theater for a New Audience. With its rectangular, black box stage and edge-of-the-balcony seating, this production was anything but "period." Instead, the wide-ranging and surreal qualities of the play provided inspiration to a stunning array of visual delights. Julie Taymor -- of Spiderman notoriety and Lion King fame -- has also directed more than a few Shakespeare productions, and this one never ceased to impress. Each and every one of us was pulled in by just how dream-like Taymor's creation was.

So, in a sense, we experienced two very different ways that a director might interpret and present Shakespeare's work. On the one hand, Rylance and company were letting the delightful language and the play's sheer fun speak for itself, provide the only magic needed. On the other hand, the play -- without its linguistic power being diminished -- became a platform for an altogether beautiful and moving and disturbing production. Again, two very different plays. Yet both did Shakespeare more than justice.