Can you sound the cry of rebellion in your country while silencing it in your own house?
King Cymbeline rules with an iron fist over the British territory of the Roman Empire. His only daughter Imogen, dismayed by his cruelty, refuses her responsibility to continue the bloodline by marrying royalty, choosing instead to marry the low-born Posthumus for love. Their union sets off an incredible series of events that ultimately lead to the birth of independent Britain.
This production, set against the backdrop of the synthwave of the late 1980s, explores the ideas of love, jealousy, nationalism, identity and sacrifice in a fast-paced, irreverent take on one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known but thoroughly delightful comedies.
Titus Andronicus is a play about the collapse of a civilization.
The titular character, Titus Andronicus, returns from decades of war battling the fierce Goths, having dedicated his entire life, his family and his very being to an idea of Rome—a Rome of order, honor, courage, and justice. So profound is his belief in law and justice that he kills his own son in a misguided sense of duty.
Titus then negotiates a series of unimaginable tragedies, as the world collapses around him, bringing him to the brink of madness. After unrelenting horrors, Titus becomes an instrument of revenge. Yet revenge is destructive, creating cyclical chaos; it is antithetical to an organized, functioning community
This production sets the action in contemporary America, urging us not to turn a blind eye to our own potential ruin. Never has Shakespeare’s “most violent play” been more relevant.
When Rosalind, daughter of the deposed Duke Senior, is banished from her uncle’s estate, she flees to the wilderness disguised as a man and accompanied by her cousin Celia and the jester Touchstone. There she encounters a community of displaced souls, including her father and the noble Orlando, with whom she falls deeply in love.
This production brings a fresh perspective to Shakespeare’s classic by setting it in the American South. The rich, melodic drawl of Southern accents brings Shakespeare’s language to life, adding a layer of warmth and authenticity that resonates with the play’s themes of love, loss and reunion and invites the audience to experience the story through a new and vivid lens.
The lush, atmospheric setting of the outdoor stage at Hawaiian Mission Houses provides a perfect backdrop for the play’s exploration of transformation and renewal in Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden.