The Play Podcast - 070 - King Lear, by William Shakespeare

Episode 077: An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Kirsten Shepherd-Barr

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People is a fable of truth and lies, politics and power, and the challenge and costs of pursuing an unpopular crusade to speak truth to power. It’s a story of ‘fake news’, manipulation of the media, the dangers of populism, and the environmental cost of capitalism. No wonder it strikes a chord in our time, for as we record this episode there are two major new productions of An Enemy of the People on the world stage.

I’m delighted to welcome back to the podcast, Ibsen expert, Professor Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, who I was privileged to talk with in episode 74 on Ibsen’s play Ghosts.

Episode 076: Othello by William Shakespeare

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Farah Karim-Cooper

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Shakespeare’s devastating exploration of race, reputation and jealousy, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice was a popular success when it was first performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, but in the centuries since it has provoked a wide range of responses as successive generations have grappled with the racial identity of the eponymous character. As we record this episode a new production of Othello at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London views the play’s treatment of race through a contemporary lens, setting the play within the London Metropolitan police force, a topical environment for racial inspection.

I am privileged to welcome as my guest someone especially qualified to help us navigate the tricky waters of Shakespeare’s play, Farah Karim-Cooper, Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Kings College London, and the author of The Great White Bard – Shakespeare, Race and the Future.

Episode 075: The Homecoming by Harold Pinter

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Matthew Dunster

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Harold Pinter’s disturbing exploration of toxic masculinity and sexual maneuvering, The Homecoming premiered in 1965. The play’s portrait of misogyny, and even more disturbing, the apparent female complicity, was shocking at the time it was written. Nearly 60 years on the sexual politics is if anything even more difficult to watch. So what was Pinter’s purpose in presenting such a provocative piece, and how do we process it in the post Me-Too age?

I am joined by Matthew Dunster, the director of a scintillating new production of the play at the Young Vic in London, who can help us answer those questions about Pinter’s challenging classic.

Episode 074: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Kirsten Shepherd-Barr

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Henrik Ibsen’s dark family drama Ghosts provoked outrage when it was published in 1881, its treatment of sexual disease, incest and euthanasia too much for the critics. More than 140 years later its portrait of repressed truths and social hypocrisy remains as powerful as ever.

As we record this episode a new adaptation of Ghosts by Joe Hill-Gibbons is playing in the Sam Wanamaker theatre at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London.

Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Professor English and Theatre Studies at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, joins us to review Ibsen’s unflinching drama.

Episode 073: The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Maria Delgado

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Federico Garcia Lorca’s unsparing drama The House of Bernarda Alba is not only a tragic family drama, but its portrait of oppression and social conformity also reflects the dangerous political landscape in which it was written. Lorca finished the play in June 1936, two months before he was murdered during the first days of the Spanish Civil War.

As we record this episode a new adaptation of the play is on stage at the National Theatre in London. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to explore this inescapably powerful play, and its author, with an expert on both, Professor Maria Delgado.

Episode 072: She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Tom Littler

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘sentimental’ or ‘laughing’ comedy She Stoops to Conquer is both a romantic comedy and a deft social satire of town and country in late 18th century England. It’s merry-go-round of romantic intrigues comes complete with mistaken identities, stolen jewels and a midnight coach ride that ends mired in a horse pond. There is never much doubt however that in the end it is the women who will conquer.

As we record this episode a sparkling new production is on stage at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond-upon-Thames, and I’m delighted to be joined today by its director, Tom Littler, who is perfectly placed to tell us why this play has proved so enduringly popular.

Episode 071: Clyde's by Lynn Nottage

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Lynette Linton

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Lynn Nottage’s play Clyde’s is set in a truck-stop diner on the outskirts of Reading, Pennsylvania. This is no ordinary diner though, because the short-order cooks that make the sandwiches that the diner is famous for are all ex-cons. The eponymous proprietor, Clyde, has not offered these characters a second chance out of the softness of her heart, but they discover some unexpected hope in their communal sufferings and support.

Lynn Nottage has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama twice, and as we record this episode the European premiere of Clyde’s is on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in London. I am delighted to be joined by the show’s director Lynette Linton, who also directed Nottage’s last play Sweat at the same theatre in 2018.

Episode 070: King Lear by William Shakespeare

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guest: Paul Prescott

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

The poet Percy Shelley called King Lear “the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world”. It is a prodigious play in every sense. There are ten major roles, it has multiple significant plot lines, an elemental stormy setting, intense domestic conflict, and acts of war and violence which roll on with a propulsive tragic energy and conjure a challenging philosophical vision.

As we record this episode a new production directed by and starring Sir Kenneth Branagh arrives in London’s West End.

I am very pleased to be joined in this episode by Paul Prescott, who is an academic, writer and theatre practitioner specialising in Shakespearean drama.

Episode 069: A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guests: Holly Race Roughan

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge tells the tragic story of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman who works on the docks under Brooklyn Bridge. Eddie lives with his wife Beatrice and 17-year old niece, Catherine, whom they have cared for since she was a child. But Catherine is no longer a child, and her natural desire to pursue her own life will tragically rupture the lives of this family and the close-knit immigrant community of Red Hook.

As we record this episode a new production of A View from the Bridge is touring the UK, and I’m delighted to talk with its director, Holly Race Roughan, about this powerful play.

Episode 068: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Host: Douglas Schatz
Guests: Ivan Wise

Welcome to The Play Podcast where we explore the greatest new and classic plays. Each episode we choose a single play to talk about in depth with our expert guest. We’ll discuss the play’s origins, its themes, characters, structure and impact. For us the play is the thing.

Pygmalion is arguably George Bernard Shaw’s most famous play, partly because it spawned the even-more famous musical My Fair Lady. The enduring popularity of the play can be attributed to the romantic arc of its central story, and to the fact that it offers two iconic parts in the characters of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins.

As a new production of Pygmalion opens at The Old Vic in London, Ivan Wise returns to the podcast to help us assess whether Shaw’s charming social parable remains as entertaining or as relevant more than a century after it was written.