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In my first report (13 May) from the front line of the RSC’s Complete Works festival, I praised a visiting German company’s take on Othello, making unfavourable comparison between its radical daring and the RSC’s own often disappointing response to the big S in its title. If that was an unkind generalisation, it’s time to get down to specifics in two of the resident company’s early contributions to the festival.
In the Swan there’s a starrily cast Antony and Cleopatra directed by Gregory Doran, while in the main theatre Nancy Meckler takes on Romeo and Juliet. Doran gives us pretty much heritage Shakespeare, with Meckler updating the battleground of the Montagues and Capulets to an ugly city square that feels more like Sicily than Verona. You don’t have to choose between such different approaches, for Shakespeare offers an infinity of performing possibilities, but you do need to ask just how good each is in its own way.
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