Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Revisiting the landmark “Warehouse” Shakespeare Trilogy: JULIUS CAESAR, HENRY IV, and THE TEMPEST

• By drediman
• November 1, 2020
• No Comments

This Halloween weekend, I binge-watched the superb film captures of the landmark “Warehouse” Shakespeare Trilogy, which was originally staged by Phyllida LLoyd for the Donmar Warehouse in London. I had seen these extraordinary productions in their American premieres at St. Ann’s Warehouse – Julius Caesar in 2013, Henry IV in 2016, and The Tempest in 2017. Filmed in 2016 at the Donmar Warehouse King’s Cross, these dynamic captures bottle the essence of live performance better than most videos of theatrical performances I’ve come across (big kudos to cinematographer Rhodri Huws). They should serve as models for how live performances should be documented going forward. I applaud St. Ann’s Warehouse for making them available, only until midnight tonight, for free streaming during these difficult times. I was thrilled to be able to revisit them.

As for the theatrical productions themselves, they remain among the most sensational stagings of Shakespeare plays I’ve seen. No, they’re not definitive renderings – the original texts have been aggressively edited and augmented with new material – but Ms. Lloyd’s reimagining of them blazingly exemplifies the unique power of theater. They’re also notable for their immense entertainment value; if anything, the “Warehouse” trilogy is compulsively watchable stuff. The overarching concept is that these plays are set in a women’s prison and performed by its inmates, which transposes the prisoner’s real stories with the happenings of Shakespeare’s plays. In doing so, Shakespeare’s language attains both newfound urgency, direct relevance, and potent double meaning. The resulting cathartic impact is akin to the feeling of being sucker punched.

At the center of these productions is the astonishing stage actress Harriet Walter (who plays Brutus, Henry IV, and Prospero), in my mind one of the great interpreters of Shakespeare, male or female, of their generation. I first saw her perform in 2000 as Lady Macbeth at London’s Young Vic in a pitch black RSC production of “The Scottish Play”, in which both she and Antony Sher utterly terrified. However, her work in this trilogy just may well be her crowning achievement. Indeed, her conveyance of the Bard’s language in these productions is unmatched in its clarity and emotional nakedness. But really, the entire ensemble is a knockout. Each remarkable actress raucously brings an integral and idiosyncratic presence to the table. Collectively, the searing force of their performances transcends gender, which is as it should be.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

SHAKESPEARE TRILOGY: JULIUS CAESAR, HENRY IV & THE TEMPEST
Theater, Off-Broadway
Donmar Warehouse / St. Ann’s Warehouse
Each production runs approximately 2 hours