I’m surprised that Julius Caesar doesn’t show up more often. I’ve seen it performed twice, something that is not true for any other of the plays. Of the remaining plays, I’ve seen eight of them.
Now, don’t ask about G&S. For some strange reason, I’ve seen Princess Ida (one of their lesser-known operettas) performed sixteen times.
Two. A Midsummer’s Night Dream as played by sixth graders (when I was in either fifth or sixth grade) and some college doing a play. I think it was Romeo and Juliet, but I don’t remember for sure. I do remember they really pushed the risque humor with their body language, and that was the first time I realized that there were dirty jokes. Or, more accurately, I first thought they were being clever to do that so that we kids would pay attention, but later found out they weren’t actually adding anything.
I’ve never seen a live version by professionals. And both of the ones I did see were abridged.
A friend of mine who’s done a LOT of amateur theater joked that whenever someone in a Shakespeare play can’t remember a line, he or she should just say, “We shall speak of this anon,” and walk off.
One of the comedies I saw at Montana Shakespeare in the Parks was interrupted by an amorous pair of ducks waddling across the stage, which got incorporated into a speech about how foolish lovers were.
My exposure to live Shakespeare is limited to short performances I’ve seen at Renaissance Fairs. Enjoyable, but certainly lacking the experience of a full production.
Travel tip for fans: If you find yourself in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area, plan to stop at Moss Landing to visit The Shakespeare Society of America’s New Shakespeare Sanctuary. They have a big collection of everything Bard-related and a very enthusiastic staff. Well worth a visit.
The Tempest — summer stock, good job
Twelfth Night — different summer stock, excellent
Midsummer nights Dream — couple of okay HS productions
As You Like It — a first rate college production by a third rate college, and a third rate college production by a first rate college, go figure
Macbeth — another third rate production by a different first rate college
I saw some Shakespeare play in Germany and in German, but I don’t recall which one. It was a long time ago!
I’ll also throw in Reduced Shakespeare Company — excellent semipro production.
And based on WS works:
Kiss Me Kate, tremendous production on Broadway (3 days before the towers went down)
West Side story — decent college production
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead — two good productions
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
The Taming of the Shrew
Titus Andronicus
Twelfth Night
I know there was at least one more, Much Ado About Nothing maybe, or possibly Merchant of Venice. I used to get season tickets to the local University Theater, and they’d always have one Shakespeare play each year.
Twelfth Night was a funky one; the entire cast was female. For a play about dressing up as the other gender, women falling in love with women dressed as men, girls dressed as boys pining after men…it was interesting.
If we’re including plays that are based on / adaptations of Shakespeare then here are 2 fun ones that I’ve seen Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), which starred Cherry Jones early in her career
I Hate Hamlet, starring Evan Handler, also relatively early in his career. I saw it before Handler left the production, not wanting to put up with Nicol Williamson’s abusive behavior
About Macbeth, the name of Shakespeare’s play and character is spelled without a capital B, which can be confusing since there are so many Scots names like MacDougal as well as people around with the name who do spell it MacBeth.
Since this thread was last active, I’ve added Troilius and Cressida to my list. I couldn’t find fault with the performance, but the play itself seemed unfinished: The bits with Ulysses, Achilles, Ajax, and Hector seemed worthy of the Bard, but the titular romance felt tacked on and uninspired. And even with the dance numbers they added, the whole thing was only about 85 minutes long.
Coincidentally, I just got in the door from another performance by the same troupe, but that was 12th Night, which I’ve seen a few times before (though again, this was a very good performance of it).
The performance was excellent. I realized I didn’t know this play at all. I knew the hunchback, and the “my horse, my horse…” bit, but for some reason I thought of Richard as a pitiable character. Maybe he’s played that was sometimes, but in the production I saw he was a right proper bastard.
One of my favourite summer activities is taking a picnic and going to watch Shakespeare in the Park. Velociraptor isn’t a huge fan, but he comes along because I make him lol.
So let me think what I have seen live…
Taming of the Shrew (this is the first one I saw, I was probably 10?)
Midsummer’s Night Dream
As You Like It
Romeo and Juliet
Much Ado About Nothing (I’m not 100% sure I’ve seen this one live, it’s one of my favourites so I’ve watched the movie many times but I’m sure I must have.)
Macbeth
Hamlet
This year is Two Gentlemen of Verona, I’m going in the next week or so because the run ends pretty quickly here!
I’ve also sat and watched some interesting selections. Last summer while on hiatus because their usual place was taken over by a festival they did a montage of Victors, Villains and Vixens at a different locale. I also watched a different group do a similar winding of all the romances as a guy trying to sell books (I think… it was awhile ago and I only caught some of it because Velociraptor was small and very active)
Apparently our Shakespeare troupe (they only do Shakespeare or Shakespeare themed plays) is having a Hamlet theme this year and one of them is Hammered Hamlet where half the cast starts out the play by doing shots. I’m curious how that would be…
I should add, I suppose, that they didn’t have Richard all hunched over and misshapen, just a bit of a limp. The “rudely stamp’d”, “deformed, unfinish’d”, and cannot “strut before a wanton ambling nymph” Richard looked like this
They did that one in Boston a few years ago, re-imagined to be in '60s, Rat-Pack-era Las Vegas. It mostly worked.
