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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare in Love: From the screen to the stage in Chicago, Oregon, Utah, and New Jersey

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare in Love
Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare in Love

Shakespeare in Love, the Oscar-winning 1998 movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, has become quite the popular stage play at Shakespeare theaters around the United States.

No less than four of the Folger’s theater partners are performing it in 2017: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Feb 18-Oct 29), Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Apr 15-Jun 18), Utah Shakespeare Festival (Jun 30-Sep 8), and Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (Oct 11-Nov 12).

Based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, and adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, Shakespeare in Love gives us the imagined romance of Will Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps, the woman who helps him overcome writer’s block to pen one of his most famous plays, Romeo and Juliet. It’s a comedy, but one with a tragic end, as the lovers are forced to part.

“As the authors imagine his character, Shakespeare is so self-absorbed that, without Viola and their relationship, he would never have left a legacy,” says Rachel Rockwell, who directs the Chicago production. “Will thought he was writing for himself, but Viola shows him that he is writing for the world. It goes beyond ego and becomes instead about creating a work of art that transcends history.”

Comments

And we have our tickets for OSF in September!

Nancy Schwalen — June 2, 2017

[…] ⇒Related: Read Shakespeare & Beyond’s look at Shakespeare in Love. […]

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