03/11/2020
Halloween may be over but it's not too late to catch the Globe's currently ongoing Shakespeare & Fear festival 👻🐈💀🎃
Here's what's on(going):
Deep Night, Dark Night 2020 (2-7 Nov)
Dim the lights, light some candles, snuggle up with a hot chocolate and join us for a night of ghost stories as we bring you chilling old, new and true tales that confront and exorcise our own doubts and fears at this time of profound uncertainty.
Paul Ready performs the eerie short story The Tell-Tale Heart written by Edgar Allan Poe; our writer-in-residence Sami Ibrahim’s 50 Berkeley Square is performed by Andrius Gaučas, and Abi Zakarian’s folkloric yet ‘honestly told’ I am Karyan Ophidian is performed by Jessie Bedrossian.
Macbeth: A Conjuring (5-11 Nov)
In 1605 there was a plague. Theatres were closed. In 1606 Shakespeare wrote Macbeth.
In 2020 there was a plague. Theatres were closed. In 2020 we read Macbeth.
There is not one mention of the plague in Macbeth, but fear is mentioned over 48 times.
The acting company of our ‘startlingly good’ (The Times) 2018 production including Michelle Terry and Paul Ready, reunite for a semi-staged reading of this ominous play about power, fear, the bloody murder of the most powerful figure in the country, and the tenacious ambition of a despotic leader who will seemingly do anything in the pursuit and maintenance of power.
In Conversation: Fear in our moment (8 Nov)
Dr Will Tosh and a panel of thinkers and writers explore fear in 2020 in this timely conversation. Shakespeare’s fears were not our own, but his society had its own dread of pandemics, political earthquakes and economic recessions. Our panellists including Professor Bridget Escolme (Professor of Theatre and Performance Queen Mary University of London) and Stella Kanu (Executive Director at LIFT) will ask how Shakespeare coped with – and built upon – political and personal dread, and how that translates into our own moment.
Thinking Through Crisis: Shakespeare and America (9 Nov)
In the aftermath of the American presidential election Professor Farah Karim-Cooper will be in conversation with Professor Ayanna Thompson and Professor James Shapiro. They will examine the dynamic between Shakespeare and social justice, autocracy, race, fear and crisis within the context of the contemporary moment in the US.
For more details on these events and how to join them head on over to:
Filmed in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, our second digital festival Shakespeare and Fear, includes ghost stories, a staged reading of Macbeth, discussions and spooky stagecraft workshops.
