90 stories by "Holger Syme"
And suddenly, there are newspapers again: between Saturday and Sunday, most — all? — of the occupied buildings were stormed, dozens of protesters killed in process, hundreds a…
This was the weekend when the government abandoned all negotiations with the striking and occupying protesters and turned to outright violence: by Sunday, all occupied buildings had been sto…
It seems as though there was less outright street fighting this day, more a tense atmosphere of expectation — the occupants held firm but were awaiting an attack by government troops. …
Negotiations between the government and the protesters are failing. The government has issued a call to arms, offering payment to citizens willing to join defence corps and “protect th…
The situation in Berlin remained chaotic: the police had ceased to operate, armed units of government forces and of revolutionaries could be seen all over the city, and public transport had …
Berlin remained in turmoil: the editorial in the morning edition of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung called it “open war of citizens against citizens” and describes the scene: …
Not a great day to start this! 6 January 1919 was the day after the beginning of the uprising that became known (inaccurately) as the Spartacist Revolt (the English Wikipedia entry …
This is a new project — let’s see how long I can keep it going. I will try to post every day about the theatrical offerings on stage in Berlin on this date a hundred years ago. I…
I’m now completely immersed in the work on my book on Shakespeare in Berlin in the last 100 years. In particular, I’m currently digging as deep as I can into the Weimar Republic …
I have been thinking quite a bit about the problem of theatrical space lately. Open any survey of theatre history, and you are likely to find a fairly standardized account of how the spac…
The pitch for Josie Rourke's Measure for Measure at the Donmar, as I had understood it, was that half-way through the show, Isabella and Angelo " or rather, Hayley Atwell and Jack Lowden " w…
This is not a review of The Wolves, though if I were writing such a review, I'd urge you all to snap up the last few remaining tickets for the production of Sarah DeLappe's play, directed by…
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here about the distant past — it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here at all! — but because…
[This text has been accepted for publication and will appear in a revised form in Theatre Survey 59.2 (May 2018) (published by Cambridge University Press); copyright (c) 2018, Ameri…
Rehearsal halls have to be, by definition, safe spaces. They have to be places where people can be as vulnerable as necessary, as open as they need to be, as free of inhibitions, as daring, …
Just some thoughts and responses, very much off-the-cuff, written right after I saw the show and only lightly edited: 1) I do not and will never understand the Anglo-American approach to "co…
Almost two years ago, the Berlin government announced that Frank Castorf's contract as the artistic director of the Volksbühne would not be renewed after the end of his current term …
When Simon Stone “overwrote” Lorca’s Yerma at the Young Vic last year, I was impressed — partly because he did so on a set that toyed with the apparent naturalism of …
I saw Ivo van Hove's Roman Tragedies on Sunday. There is no doubt that the work is a significant achievement, an evening of towering ambition and awe-inspiring commitment, a display of an ac…
Robert Icke’s Hamlet is so absolutely stacked with ideas and original takes that someone could produce an annotated edition of the play based on it. After a single viewing, I have almo…
So. It’s been over a week since the Emma Rice debacle at the Globe hit the headlines. My first response was anger and disbelief, and obviously, as is my won’t, I was ready to blo…
One might say that Nicolas Stemann doesn't so much stage The Merchant of Venice as interrogate the play " or the very possibility of staging it now. That would only capture part of what this…
A brief outburst, prompted by nothing in particular. Well, that’s lie. Prompted by this experience: I found myself walking into the Tom Patterson Theatre at Stratford in a crowd of tee…
From my Northern perch, I’ve been following the US election rather obsessively. From a partisan angle? Of course. If the orange monster gets elected, he will not just wreck his own cou…
This is really quick and dirty and off the cuff… Carly Maga’s excellent review in the Toronto Star (wow, it feels nice to be able to use “excellent review” and “…
