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Olivier, Dench, McKellen and More Featured in Live Shakespeare CD
By: BWW News Desk Nov. 03, 2005
Released by The Royal Shakespeare Company in conjunction with The British Library, the recording (which is on two CDs) includes soliloquies, monologues and scenes captured live in performance. "I felt a sense of privilege at being able to listen to performances I had heard so much about, but never imagined would be able to experience. Theatre is a transitory art. That is its essence. It vanishes into thin air. But here it has been snatched back," stated Gregory Doran, the Associate Director of the RSC. Doran selected the extracts, which have been sonically enhanced by The British Library; audience reactions have been left alone.
The CD will include:
Laurence Olivier, Harry Andrews and Michael Blakemore in Coriolanus, directed by Peter Hall from 1959.
Donald Sinden and Peggy Ashcroft in King Henry VI, Part 3, directed by Peter Hall and John Barton, from 1964.
Paul Scofield in King Lear, directed by Peter Brook, from 1964.
David Warner in Hamlet, directed by Hall, from 1966.
Sinden, Tony Church, Alton Kumalo and Jeffrey Dench in Twelfth Night, directed by Barton, from 1971.
Patrick Stewart and John Wood in Julius Caesar, directed by Trevor Nunn, from 1973.
Janet Suzman in Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Nunn, from 1973.
Richard Pasco and Ian Richardson in Richard II, directed by Barton, from 1974.
Ian McKellen, Francesca Annis and Marie Kean in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Nunn, from 1977.
Emrys James in Henry V, directed by Terry Hands, from 1976.
Alan Howard in Henry V, directed by Hands, from 1978.
Roger Rees and Michael Williams in The Comedy of Errors, directed by Nunn, from 1977.
Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance in The Tempest, directed by Ron Daniels, from 1983.
Antony Sher and Penny Downie in Richard III, directed by Bill Alexander, from 1985.
Alan Rickman in As You Like It, directed by Adrian Noble, from 1986.
Janet Dale and Lindsay Duncan in The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Alexander, from 1988.
Brian Cox in Titus Andronicus, directed by Deborah Warner, from 1988.
Robert Stephens and Michael Maloney in Henry IV, Part I, directed by Noble, from 1992.
David Oyelowo in Henry VI, Part 3, directed by Michael Boyd, from 2001.
Judi Dench in All's Well That Ends Well, directed by Gregory Doran, from 2002.
The Essential Shakespeare--Live's price is set at £15.95; it is available at various book stores throughout the U.K., and at the British Library and RSC shops, as well as at the following link.
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