1992

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

John Ford

State Theatre Company

Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Simon Phillips’ season of classics in tandem, -Elizabethan and Jacobean, comedy and tragedy, dream and nightmare- is an ambitious one. It is physically demanding on actors,  tricky to design and difficult to publicise. More than just works in repertory, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore have been joined at the hip, or more likely …

Surely we’re all mad people, and they
Whom we think are, are not.

-The Revenger’s Tragedy

Is the world mad ?
I’m not paid to quarrel with accepted facts.

– Joe Orton

Joe Orton’s plays are disquietingly funny not because of their nihilism but because of their relentless logic. Few satirists are as unsparing of human behaviour and of human institutions. The lineage probably begins with Kafka. In The Trial, the authorities knock at the door of Josef K, arrest …

1992

Murray Bramwell talks to Director Simon Phillips and Designer Shaun Gurton about their forthcoming season of classics in tandem

The State Theatre Company’s first in-house production for the year is a double bill – or more correctly, a Bill and a John. Performed in repertory, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore represent what the company are calling in their promotion two classic tales of forbidden love. Certainly when Lysander, the confused …