Days of Significance

Authors

  • Kathryn Prince Birkbeck College, University of London

Abstract

Days of Significance, written by Roy Williams, is one of the new plays commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of its Complete Works Festival. Premièred at the Swan Theatre in January 2007, this very loose adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing moves between modern-day England and Iraq to explore the tension between military and societal values that in Shakespeare lead to conflict when the soldiers return from battle. This version begins on the eve of two new recruits' departure for Basra, and traces the damage that war causes both for those who fight abroad and for those they leave behind.

Author Biography

Kathryn Prince, Birkbeck College, University of London

Kathryn Prince is a postdoctoral research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her work on Shakespeare's reception before the twentieth century has already yielded a Ph.D. thesis and several forthcoming articles, and is the focus of her current research for a book entitled "England, France, and the Shakespeare Controversy from the French Revolution to the First World War." She is also writing the Much Ado About Nothing volume for Manchester University Press's Shakespeare in Performance series.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2006. Image: 18th century actress in a shepherdess costume tips her hat.

Downloads

Published

2006-09-01

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2006): Fall/Winter

Section

Appropriations in Performance Reviews