From the first time I heard the idea of making Lady Macbeth one of the weird sisters, I’ve desperately wanted to see it played out but was unsure of how it was to be staged. Twelve Angry’s clever, visceral and chillingly human production takes the idea to its heights,...

It may just be my newness to Australian Shakespeare, but it seems that the histories are staged far less than comedies or tragedies, whether it be due to a different cultural surrounding the strict social hierarchy, a weaker connection to the history, or a general preference for the more familiar plays. However, performances such as MUSC’s Henry IV show that even removed from their original context, the histories are powerful and engaging in their own right.

With two Melbourne Coriolanus productions in a single month and the recent successes of the Donmar production and Ralph Fiennes’ film, I wonder if the play’s period of rarity and obscurity is finally at its end. And powerful, exhilarating productions such as...

I only just managed to finish reading Merry Wives before the show itself, but even then I was familiar with urban legends that the play was written in a mere two weeks. And they play is distinctly different from many in the Shakespeare canon, swapping out untranslated French for de extreme accents written into de script dat I had no idea went back so far in history, and pulling Falstaff into a new comedic setting away from the trials of kingship and battles.

Effortlessly maneuvering through bawdy comedy, intimacy and tragedy, Bell Shakespeare’s tragedy shows the sheer power of Australian Shakespeare when well founded and lovingly developed through the years in a powerful production that could challenge many from English soil.