Hi, I’m Julie.
I am a retired Principal Lecturer. I continue to research contemporary Shakespeare performances. In retirement, I no longer teach Shakespeare but I now get to visit new places. I love theatre, outdoor swimming and writing about those experiences in my blogs.
It felt a little bit strange going into a theatre that looked like a theatre I had become very familiar with, but was slightly different. In reconstructing the Courtyard in the Roundhouse, the RSC have created a version of the Stratford theatre, rather than a replica theatre. There’s no upper circle and the rusts and reds are transformed to…
Read more Romeo and Juliet again..(RSC at the Roundhouse, 4th December 2010)
The production of Antony and Cleopatra recently performed at the Liverpool Playhouse (directed by Janet Suzman) was clearly a good solid safe production of the play. It felt that the time had been spent on speaking the verse and thinking about blocking scenes, and I felt there were very few flaws. There were some very nice…
Read more Antony and Cleopatra (Liverpool Playhouse, Saturday November 13th 2010)
Lucy Prebble’s play, Enron, utilises visual imagery from fantasy fiction to tell the story of the collapse of the American energy company Enron. Not knowing much about the Fantasy genre, I was still able to recognise that the imagery comes from sources such as Marvel Comics, Star Wars and children’s cartoons. For example, Chief Financial Officer Andy Fastow (Paul Chahidi) seems to turn into a Teenage Mutant Ninja…
Read more Enron (Theatre Royal Newcastle, November 2010) and The Apprentice (BBC1)
I thought that the death of the character Jack Duckworth was a lovely piece of television drama. British soap is usually supposed to be a reflection of gritty reality. This week, the programme moved the audience from a familiar situation to the unfamiliar without the audience having an immediate awareness that this had happened. Coronation…
What I felt about this production of Hamlet was that when it opened it was a very good production and on the last day I saw it, I thought that it was a superb production. I suppose the question here is, is a form of rehearsal be taking place as a production develops beyond previews and through the run and how…
Read more Hamlet (Crucible Sheffield, September/October 2010)
On the 15th October matinée, Katy Stephens (text in hand) took on the role of Cleopatra in the RSC Antony and Cleopatra when Kathryn Hunter ‘was indisposed’. Though for most of the scenes Katy Stephens held the book in her hand, she only looked at the script now and again to remind herself of odd lines. I felt…
Read more Antony and Cleopatra. Part 2 (Theatre Royal Newcastle, 15th October 2010)
When I saw Antony and Cleopatra in Stratford, I felt that Artistic Director, Michael Boyd’s vision of the RSC ensemble and how it should be put into reality seemed to come to fruition in the production. The house lights are up for most of the production creating a real awareness of the audience watching. The vomitaria are used a lot…
I must admit that this production of Macbeth was very much in the Belt Up aesthetic and contributes to an oeuvre which experiments with using space in inventive ways. In a proscenium arch theatre this involves the breaking down the fourth wall and any divide between auditorium and stage in using the space in the performance. Belt Up take some of their ideas…
Read more Macbeth (Belt Up, York Theatre Royal, 8th October 2010)
Trailers – Romeo and Juliet | RSC.
Two productions of the same play in Theatre Royals in the North of England, yet very different experiences. In the past month, I have had chance to revisit the RSC’s production of Romeo and Juliet in Newcastle and have seen the Pilot Theatre’s production of the same play in York. Having seen both productions so…
Read more Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal, Newcastle and York)
Julie Raby: A Dyslexic Writer 