Cindy Marcolina - Page 34

The celebrations for the marriage between Theseus of Athens and his new slave bride Hippolyta are in full swing with techno music, dances, and lots of straight vodka. Lysander and Hermia are in love but her father Egeus wants her married to Demetrius, the focus of Helena's desire. Fairy royal couple Titania and Oberon have become estranged because of her disobedience. While the figures try to resolve their differences, the sun sets on Regent's Park in a jubilation of red and yellow while the Rude Mechanicals rehearse their play.

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream seems to be this season's go-to comedy and, from Nicholas Hytner's lightly immersive offering at the Bridge Theatre to the smaller productions dotted around London, it's delighting audiences young and old.

The grounds of St Paul's Church in Covent Garden are hosting a revolutionary staging of Hamlet. Directed by Daniel Winder, it sees non-binary transgender actor Jenet Le Lacheur taking on the main role. We caught up with them to learn more about how gender plays a big part in the production, which interpretation of the tragic hero is their favourite, and if there's any pressure in being Hamlet.

The second production housed at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester's 2019 line-up is Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. Written after the writer lost his lover Kenny Morgan to suicide, the play details the day that follows Hester Collyer's attempted one. When her nosy neighbours find her unconscious body, they contact her husband Bill - a judge and established member of London's high society - whom she left ten months prior to jump head-first in a passionate affair with Freddie Page, an ex-RAF pilot who's now unemployed and struggling.

There are many different accounts of Medea's tale, all told by men or in relation to their presence in her life. Therese Ramstedt and Zandile Darko reclaim her narrative and aim the spotlight on the actual pivot of the myth, Glauce and Medea themselves. They deliver a compelling piece that fuses comedy with the dark and primal story.

In a Catholic boarding school in the United States, a group of teenagers try to find their place in the world. They grapple with accepting their sexual orientation and identity, trying to reconcile their self-discovery with the religious education they've been subjected to.

Since 2016, Shakespeare in the Squares have brought delightful takes of Shakespeare's works to gardens all around London. This year, they mark their annual summer celebrations with a charming and quaint production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Ade (Jonathan Livingstone) and Nina (Phoebe Pryce) enroll their daughter in cheap tennis lessons. All of a sudden, she starts to get noticed and shows all the potential to become a prodigy of the sport. But what it take to build a champion? Oli Forsyth's Cash Cow explores parental ambition and emotional sacrifice through the eyes of those who are supposed to push with tenderness.

Feminist theatre company Wet Paint takes over The Space to deconstruct the myth of Medea in Fall Prettier. The show, written by Therese Ramstedt and co-directed with Zandile Darko, promises catchy tunes and glitter while simultaneously question Medea's historically male-centred narrative.

The latest drunken venture coming from Magnificent Bastard Productions's ludicrously perverse minds is the story of everybody's favourite sad guy: Hamlet. The preamble is simple: each performance sees the professionally trained cast dealing with the aftermath of an afternoon spent drinking by one of them. What ensues is an ever-changing, unpredictable show that's guaranteed to have the audience in stitches.

It took nearly two decades for the Comedie-Francaise, the oldest theatre company in the world, to come back to the UK. Now, they invade the Barbican stage with Ivo van Hove at the helm to deliver his own acclaimed, thrilling vision of Luchino Visconti's The Damned.

It's the 1960s and the Muscolinos are raising three daughters in Brooklyn. As Italian immigrants, they are striving to maintain their own identity while rebelling against an outdated patriarchal structure in their own individual ways.

Screen and stage actress Michele Austin is currently tackling The Hunt at the Almeida Theatre, directed by Rupert Goold. David Farr's play is based on the critically acclaimed Danish film thriller Jagten.

Tom Littler's latest venture is a glorious four-version take on Oscar Wilde's masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray, adapted by Lucy Shaw. They examine the original text and extrapolate its myth, stripping it down to its core and leaving the soul of the story bare for everyone to see. Shaw becomes one with Wilde, using the elegance of his seminal material to write a poetic play that might as well have come from the man himself, while Littler orchestrates the script with elegant passion.

Everybody knows that the internet is the host of some very awful matter. Images and links are permanent and if you dig hard enough, an underworld of crime starts spreading behind the screen.

Right in time for Pride month, Nicholas Hytner draws a curious card from his sleeve for his own Bridge Theatre, introducing A Midsummer Night's Dream as a beguiling triumph of identity.

The second edition of the Italian Theatre Festival comes to end with a real gem. Multi-talented performer Marco Paolini graces the stage of The Coronet with a tremendous take on the myth of Ulysses. Accompanied by Saba Anglana and Lorenzo Monguzzi, he delivers a devastatingly honest tale of loss and retribution.

The Italian Theatre Festival begins its swansong bringing one of Italy's most distinguished performers to the Coronet stage. Giuseppe Battiston takes on the role of Winston Churchill in Carlo G. Gabardini's play Winston vs Churchill.

After the female-led kick-off, the Italian Theatre Festival at The Coronet centres the attention on the United Kingdom's favourite writer, Shakespeare. Fabrizio Gifuni dissects and disassembles Hamlet in an intimate examination of the character through voice and music.

The Italian Theatre Festival is back at The Coronet Theatre for their second edition. After a less than overwhelming first experiment last year, the Italian Cultural Institute start their new program with a moving and culturally aware kick-off.