Volume 44, Number 2 · February 6, 1997
The Ghost at the Feast
By Geoffrey O'Brien
FILMS AND PRODUCTIONS DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
film directed by Baz Luhrmann
Hamlet
a film directed by Kenneth Branagh
Looking for Richard
a film directed by Al Pacino
Twelfth Night
a film directed by Trevor Nunn
A Midsummer Night's Dream Tramway Theater, Glasgow, February 4-7; the Palais Résidence, Brussels, February 12-15; and the Cultural Center Belem, Lisbon, February 19-23
a play directed by Jonathan Miller. At the Almeida Theatre, London, through February 1, 1997; then the
To unravel my first associations with Shakespeare is like trying to clamber back into the core of childhood. My parents worked in the theater—my mother as actress, my father as director and theater owner—and stages figured early on as places of magical transformation. Seeing the process from the wings did not make it any less magical: quite the contrary. The stage was a place where people became other than what they were, in a fully real alternate world. The most highly developed aspect of that other world was called Shakespeare, conceived not as an individual but as an inventory of places, costumes, roles, phrases, songs.
Review, 6082 words
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