Blogcritics Author: Cynthia Greenwood

Theater Review (Houston): Susanna and Will - A Reckoning Among the Dead in Stratford-upon-Avon

Cynthia Greenwood — Fri, 2 May 2008 13:33:49 EDT

Shakespeare's daughter Susanna challenges the Bard with tough personal questions about life and love.
Will the real William Shakespeare come forward? Only in our dreams. . . The mystery of Shakespeare's life and career is compelling. How do we reconcile our image of the absentee husband and father from Stratford with the prodigious output of the London-based poet and player? Susanna and Will is an elegant new work by playwright Diana Howie,...

Theatre Review (NYC): "Foul is Fair" - Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood Uncover the Power of Shakespeare's Dark, Psychological Tale of Macbeth

Cynthia Greenwood — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:16:16 EDT

Director Rupert Goold�s filmic version of Macbeth is novel but distracting.
New productions of Macbeth are exciting to behold, not least because the play is probably Shakespeare’s most accessible to the average playgoer. The play’s witchcraft and mysterious prophecies are thrilling. Its tale of an ambitious man and woman driven to power by evil means is timeless. The circumstances of Macbeth and Lady...

TV Review: "Sense and Sensibility" Treated Deftly in the Latest Masterpiece Classic

Cynthia Greenwood — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 06:43:19 EDT

Writer Andrew Davies� adaptation takes us on a leisurely stroll through Jane Austen's first published novel.
Aside from the heavy breathing that opened last Sunday’s "Sense and Sensibility", so out of keeping with Jane Austen’s witty comedy, Masterpiece Classic’s final adaptation in "The Complete Jane Austen" has much to recommend it.In the first half of Andrew Davies' screenplay, which aired on Sunday,...

TV Review: Jane Austen Lite - Emma Is Masterpiece's Breezy Comedy of Manners

Cynthia Greenwood — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:55:49 EDT

PBS Reprises 1996 TV version of Emma for Masterpiece Classic.
Since long before the 2007 box office release of The Jane Austen Book Club, the world has been open to new interpretations of Jane Austen’s satirical comedies. The great English novelist’s popularity on screen has probably never been greater. Emma, Austen’s masterful comedy of manners, blends wit and irony supremely. Published in...

Theatre Review (Houston): The Alley Theatre Performs Othello

Cynthia Greenwood — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:22:01 EDT

Sheer physicality and a maritime motif heighten James Black's portrayal of Shakespeare's greatest villain, Iago.
In staging a physical, swiftly moving Othello, the Alley Theatre puts itself in the service of the breathless, verbal power of Shakespearean treachery. In a refreshing departure from the hot air balloon “gossip” theme underlying the company's 2006 rendering of Much Ado About Nothing, director Scott Schwartz puts the revenge plot...

In the Beginning: Claudio Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea

Cynthia Greenwood — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:13:37 EDT

A Look at The Coronation of Poppea and the Beginnings of Opera
Musicologists have deemed Claudio Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea the undisputed masterpiece of early 17-century opera. But usually in the same breath, they acknowledge they have trouble reconciling the work’s pioneering structure with questions about its meaning, pointing to a central problem surrounding the immorality and evil...