Rachel Eisendrath I Killed a Man Back There If, as Hamlet claims, every play holds a “mirror up to nature,” what kind of mirror is Robert Icke’s production? August 10, 2022
James Shapiro Skytrain to Stratford-upon-Avon “I sometimes imagine a future in which Shakespeare’s plays have lost their edge, no longer speak to us. That won’t be in my lifetime.” January 15, 2022
Geoffrey O’Brien A Timon for Our Time This production of Timon of Athens mounted by Theatre for a New Audience is described in the program as taking place “sometime in the near future,” but its opening is very much of the present gilded age. January 29, 2020
Sarah Boxer Hamlet, My Prince of Pigs You’ll see that Hamlet: Prince of Pigs has been stripped of all fat. And tragedy minus many words is comedy. A pared-down Hamlet is a funny Hamlet. Here are a few scenes from my tragicomic. February 25, 2018
Geoffrey O’Brien Shakespeare's Power Play Given the perennial relevance of the various injustices it circles around—the sexual exploitation and pious hypocrisy and persecution of whistle blowers—Measure for Measure invites updating. July 10, 2017
Garry Wills Gulping Down Shakespeare Should we take our Shakespeare in a gulp or in separate driblets? The history plays beg for some consideration as a whole, as the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s year-long, two-part series has set out to show. September 25, 2016
Garry Wills Shakespeare's War Plays Barbara Gaines, the founding director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, has long wondered what the history plays would look like if performed in the order of the events being treated. What better time to try out this notion than the 2016 Shakespeare year? May 23, 2016
Tim Parks The Chattering Mind By far the main protagonist of twentieth century literature must be the chattering mind, which usually means the mind that can’t make up its mind, the mind postponing action in indecision and, if we’re lucky, poetry. June 29, 2012
Garry Wills Chicago’s Magnificent ‘Macbeth’ This month at the Lyric Opera of Chicago there is a production of Verdi’s Macbeth to knock your socks off. October 18, 2010