All stories by Holger Syme on BroadwayStars

Monday, August 1, 2016

Cymbeline (Shakespeare, dir. Melly Still) RSC, August 2016 by Holger Syme

I’ll be seeing a lot of theatre over the next two weeks, and I’m badly out of practice in writing about shows — it’s been almost a year since I last did a proper revi…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 12:09PM
Thursday, June 2, 2016

Live-Tweeting The One King Lear by Holger Syme

  Three weeks ago I had what seemed like a fun idea at the time: I’d live-tweet a steady stream of my responses to Brian Vickers’s — sorry: Sir Brian Vickers’s &…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 06:15PM
Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Post-Curtain Theatre History by Holger Syme

I suspect that my generation of theatre historians will look back on this day as a game changing moment: the Curtain has been dug up in Shoreditch, and it’s nothing like what we expect…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 02:50AM
Sunday, January 10, 2016

Using Performance in Teaching Shakespeare by Holger Syme

I wrote this rather grumpy short paper for a roundtable on “Pedagogical Shakespeare: Text, Performance, and Digitalization,” organized by Bradin Cormack and Elizabeth Harvey at t…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:55AM
Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Directing and the Impossibility of Criticism by Holger Syme

This autumn, I directed a show. It’s something I’ve wanted to do again for a long time — there was a period in my life when I thought I wanted to be a director, and when I …

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 05:34PM
Tuesday, November 10, 2015

As You Like It (Shakespeare; dir. Polly Findlay), National Theatre, London, October 2015 by Holger Syme

I saw the second preview of this, so held off posting until after it had opened (and what follows are my off-the-cuff responses jotted down right after I saw the show and not really reconsid…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 03:23PM
Saturday, October 24, 2015

Medea (Euripides/Rachel Cusk; dir. Rupert Goold), Almeida, London, October 2015 by Holger Syme

I should have hated this Medea. After all, I was massively annoyed by the National Theatre production last year, not just because of Ben Power’s pedestrian adaptation, but mostly becau…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 10:43AM
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Hamlet (Shakespeare; dir. Lyndsey Turner), Barbican, London, October 2015 by Holger Syme

A set reminiscent of the dilapidated stately home that Alex Eales designed for Katie Mitchell’s Alles Weitere Kennen Sie aus den Kino in Hamburg, except more vast: its wide stretch fil…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:27AM
Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Three Days in the Country (Turgenev/Marber, dir. Marber), National Theatre, London, October 2015 by Holger Syme

Very quick & short off-the-cuff review. Patrick Marber’s adaptation of Turgenev’s play (directed by Marber himself) is slick, smooth, professional, superficial, and extremel…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:27AM
Friday, October 16, 2015

Dear Globe and Mail by Holger Syme

You have the best arts coverage of all our Canadian newspapers. You have some excellent reporters. During this election campaign, you published a number of serious, well-considered, forceful…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 07:10PM
Sunday, September 6, 2015

Germany, Canada, and Basic Human Decency by Holger Syme

I was born in West Germany. In my late teens, after the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of the two Germanies I’d grown up with, I spent much of my spare time organizing prote…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:05AM
Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Tim Carroll Conundrum by Holger Syme

Tim Carroll has been appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival. When the news was announced last week, my instant reaction was that “this may be the weirdest and most…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 06:03PM
Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The New Norton Shakespeare and Theatre History by Holger Syme

This is the most self-serving of posts. This week, the new third edition of the Norton Shakespeare finally came out. It’s a total overhaul of this widely used text: unlike the first t…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 06:14PM
Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Eurydice (Sarah Ruhl; dir. Alan Dilworth), Soulpepper, Toronto, June 2015 by Holger Syme

Things that don’t happen as often as I would like: seeing shows in Toronto that assure me that theatre remains a vital art form here; seeing shows that only make sense as theatre, and …

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:51AM
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

German Theatre and the Power of the Moment: Acting, Text, and “Logic” by Holger Syme

I have been trying to figure out and describe what exactly is so special about German theatre. In some ways, especially from the perspective of the English-speaking theatre world, it may see…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:01PM
Saturday, May 16, 2015

When Unremarkable Theatre is Remarkable by Holger Syme

Jette Steckel’s production of Arthur Schnitzler’s Das Weite Land at the Deutsche Theater makes no efforts to reinvent much of anything. It’s a very well done, moderately in…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:01PM
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Platonov, Dissected by Holger Syme

An empty stage, sliced diagonally in half by dolly tracks running from downstage right to upstage left; on those tracks, a grand piano on a cart, equipped with a microphone for the player. T…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 11:19AM
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The Talkback Dilemma / Das Publikumsgesprächsleiden by Holger Syme

I should be writing about the two Woyzecks I’ve seen this week, and about Karin Henkel’s fantastic John Gabriel Borkmann. But the other thing I’ve been watching, other than plays, is Q…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 06:02PM
Friday, May 8, 2015

Castorf does Ibsen: Baumeister Solness, Volksbuehne, Berlin. May 2015. by Holger Syme

(Off the cuff and short.) My evening in the Volksbuehne: Frank Castorf directing The Master Builder. 4 hours of Ibsen. Well. 4 hours of Ibsen and a lot of other stuff. 4 hours of nine life-s…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 10:02PM

Chekhov at the Gorki by Holger Syme

Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, under the new artistic leadership that took charge last season, has quite aggressively redefined itself as what they call a post-migrant theatre — b…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:33PM
Saturday, May 2, 2015

Macbeth (Shakespeare; dir. Dave St-Pierre) Schauspiel Frankfurt by Holger Syme

What happens when a German theatre hires a French Canadian choreographer to direct a play by Shakespeare? Something very Canadian. Dave St-Pierre’s staging of Macbeth at the Schauspiel Fra…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:05AM
Saturday, February 14, 2015

A View from the Bridge (Arthur Miller; dir. Ivo van Hove) Young Vic / Wyndham’s, Feb. 2015 by Holger Syme

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen as rigorous, as complete, and as compelling a piece of theatre on a UK stage as Ivo van Hove’s take on Arthur Miller’s View from the Bridg…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 09:26PM
Tuesday, February 3, 2015

German Theatre, the Old, and the Now: Theatertreffen Troubles by Holger Syme

Today, the Berliner Festspiele announced the jury’s selection of the most “remarkable” German, Swiss, and Austrian theatre productions of 2014, the shows that are being inv…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 02:59AM
Saturday, January 17, 2015

The Seagull (Chekhov; dir. Chris Abraham), Canadian Stage / Crow’s Theatre (Berkeley). 16 Jan 2015 by Holger Syme

Making good on my new year’s resolutions: going to more Toronto theatre and writing about shows on the blog rather than on Facebook. So this is rough and quick and off the cuff and rel…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:57AM
Sunday, January 11, 2015

Canadian Theatre’s Youth Problem? Still There. by Holger Syme

I got into a bit of a squabble on Facebook today with Kelly Nestruck about Stratford and what I described as its unwillingness to hand over substantial, youthful parts to youthful, perhaps i…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 03:35AM
Friday, January 9, 2015

Off-the-Cuff Reviews, 2014: Plays in Canada by Holger Syme

I’ve decided to go through my many Facebook posts about theatre from last year and collect all my instant reactions to shows as I saw them — fragmentary, brusque, overly enthusia…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 12:23PM
Saturday, January 3, 2015

Off-the-Cuff Reviews, 2014: Plays in Germany by Holger Syme

I’ve decided to go through my many Facebook posts about theatre from last year and collect all my instant reactions to shows as I saw them — fragmentary, brusque, overly enthusia…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 04:24PM

Sidebar: Two Interesting Paragraphs from an Interview with Peter Stein (1981) by Holger Syme

Peter Stein, in 1981, on acting: Actors — all actors — naturally tend to protect their characters. As far as I’m concerned, an actor who wouldn’t do that would be ser…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 03:52PM

Off-the-Cuff Reviews, 2014: Plays in the UK by Holger Syme

I’ve decided to go through my many Facebook posts about theatre from last year and collect all my instant reactions to shows as I saw them — fragmentary, brusque, overly enthusia…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 02:30AM

Off-the-Cuff Reviews, 2014: Plays in the US by Holger Syme

I’ve decided to go through my many Facebook posts about theatre from last year and collect all my instant reactions to shows as I saw them — fragmentary, brusque, overly enthusia…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 01:24AM
Thursday, January 1, 2015

2014 in Review by Holger Syme

As quiet as it’s been on here lately, and although I have seen all of three plays in the last two months, 2014 was actually a pretty exciting year in theatre for me: Still: there are…

SOURCE: www.dispositio.net at 06:10PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards