Professional Shakespeare Productions in the British Isles, January-December 1994

Summary

Most of the productions listed are by professional companies, but a number of productions with mixed amateur and professional casts have been included. Information is mainly taken from newspaper reviews held in the Birmingham Shakespeare Library. Notable this year has been the increasing number of professional or semi-professional companies performing at open-air sites such as National Trust houses and Oxford and Cambridge college gardens, exploiting the link between Shakespeare and the tourist industry. There is also an increasing number of small touring companies, probably a response to the effect of the recession on professional theatre: an interesting twentieth-century version of the strolling players tradition.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

The Court Theatre Company at the Courtyard Theatre, King's Cross, London: May 1994

Director: Adrian Brown

Antony: Hayward Morse

Cleopatra: June Abbot

The Berliner Ensemble and Wiener Festwochen at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh: August 1994

German translation by Elisabeth Plessen

Director: Peter Zadek

Designer: Wilfried Minks

Antony: Gert Voss

Cleopatra: Eva Mattes

First performance, Berlin, May 1994; also performed in Vienna and Amsterdam.