The next Shakespeare play to get the famous Synetic silent treatment will be Antony and Cleopatra, under the direction of Paata Tsikurishvili (shown left) featuring Irina Tsikurishvili as Cleopatra and Ben Cunis as Antony. Due to the just announced partnership between Shakespeare Theatre Company and Synetic Theater, the play will be staged at the historic Lansburgh Theatre from January 28 – February 28, 2010.
With this agreement, the multiple Helen Hayes Award winning Synetic joins distinguished performing arts companies CityDance Ensemble, Summer Opera Theatre Company, Capital Fringe Festival and The Washington Ballet in becoming artistic partners with the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Synetic Theater closes this season with A Midsummer Night’s Dream May 28 – June 14 at the Kennedy Center.
Ah, a question that has been posed for years, and mostly by Synetic itself (bold, huh?), and here’s my take – the adaptations into movement are not mere enactments of plot, but physical interpretations of the words and speeches that do in fact make it Shakespeare, and the scenes and storytelling that indeed make it the play that it is. For example, Synetic’s Macbeth very much featured the “is this a dagger I see before me?” “speech”, and Romeo and Juliet’s “palm to palm as holy palmers touch” words factored heavily into Synetic’s interpretation the scene, featuring (beautifully) the lovers’ hands (all that is lit) doing that very much. Watching that show didn’t make me think “Ovid”, “Pyramus and Thisbe”, or anything generic . . . it was all very specifically the Shakespeare play that I was watching, which Shakespeare’s words “translated” into movement, as they have been translated into so many other languages over the years.
How is it Shakespeare when you are not using his actual words? For example, with Romeo and Juliet, shouldn’t that be called the Ovid since they take out the single thing that makes it Shakespeare..his words. Nothing against their productions, because they are very well done. Any thoughts?