My Shakespeare: A Director’s Journey Through the First Folio

THE TIMES' BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR This book charts the personal and professional journey of Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2012 until 2022 and "one of the great Shakespearians of his generation" (Sunday Times). During his illustrious career, Doran has directed or produced all of the plays within Shakespeare's First Folio -- a milestone reached in the same year that the world celebrates the 400th anniversary of its original publication. Each chapter looks at a different play, considering the choices made and weaving in both autobiographical detail and background on the RSC, as well as giving insights into key collaborations, including those with actors such as Judi Dench, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, Patrick Stewart, Simon Russell Beale, Paterson Joseph and Doran's husband, the late Antony Sher, as well as seminal practitioners such as Cicely Berry, John Barton and Terry Hands. The book also includes 16 striking pages with stills from some of the RSC plays. Through Doran's account of this extraordinary journey, we see how Henry VIII, initially regarded as a poisoned chalice, became his lucky break; how the tragedy of 9/11 unfolded during a matinee of King John and how the language of the play went some way in helping to articulate the unfathomable; how a RSC supporter bequeathed their skull to the company to be used as Yorick in Hamlet; how meeting Nelson Mandela inspired the production of Julius Caesar; how Falstaff was introduced to China for the very first time; and how arachnophobia informed the production of Macbeth. This book uniquely captures the excitement, energy, surprises, joys and agonies of working on these greatest of plays; sheds new light on these plays through Doran's own research and discoveries made in the rehearsal room; and gives unprecedented access into the craft, life and loves of this exceptional director. My Shakespeare is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.

Table of Contents:
Chapter Page Introduction 8 1 Romeo and Juliet: A Prologue 9 2 Titus Andronicus 23 3 Henry VIII, or All is True. 31 4 The Merchant of Venice 39 5 The Winter's Tale 45 6 Timon of Athens 50 7 Macbeth 55 8 As You Like It 65 9 King John 69 10 Much Ado About Nothing 75 11 The Taming of The Shrew 85 12 All's Well That Ends Well 92 13 Othello 98 14 Venus & Adonis 110 15 A Midsummer Night's Dream 116 16 Antony & Cleopatra 127 17 Merry Wives: The Musical 134 18 Coriolanus 139 19 Hamlet 144 20 Love's Labour's Lost 153 21 Twelfth Night 161 22 Julius Caesar 168 23 Richard II 176 24 Henry IV Part One 183 25 Henry IV Part Two 200 26 Henry V 203 27 King Lear 209 28 The Tempest 217 29 Troilus and Cressida 225 30 Measure for Measure 231 31 The Comedy of Errors (a lockdown chapter) 235 32 Henry VI Part One 240 33 Henry VI Part Two 249 34 Henry VI Part Three 253 35 Richard III 255 36 Cymbeline: An Epilogue 268

About the Author :
Greg Doran has been described as “one of the supreme Shakespeare directors of our era” (Financial Times) and “one of the finest present day directors of Shakespeare” (Sunday Telegraph). He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as an actor in 1987 and became its Artistic Director in 2012. He has directed and/or produced every single play in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays at Stratford-upon-Avon. His 2012 production of Julius Caesar was described by theatre critic Michael Billington as one the ten best productions in the 60-year history of the RSC and as one of his ten best nights in the theatre ever. Doran delivered the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC One in 2016. He was awarded the Sam Wanamaker Prize for pioneering work in Shakespearean theatre in 2012 and won a special Olivier Award for outstanding achievement for a season of Jacobean plays in 2002. His writing credits include the book Woza Shakespeare!, co-authored with Antony Sher.

Review :
This career retrospective, centred on the Folio, reflects Doran's temperament: decent, diligent, likeable, lucid. It's openly learned, plunging into a close reading of Romeo and Juliet's prologue, but it's also candid. It has given me so much joy to read the story of Greg Doran's journey through these great plays. Fantastic, informative, revealing, occasionally gossipy and thoroughly engrossing, this is a remarkable memoir of a remarkable career. Greg Doran's brilliance, clarity of thought and – most of all – his humanity shines through. One of the distinctive achievements of Greg Doran's recently concluded term as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company was to direct all the plays in the First Folio, creating a deposit of excellent, thoughtful renderings. His recollections and reflections on these productions are collected in My Shakespeare. Some chapters are almost entirely anecdotal, but there are few if any that fail to cast some new light on the drama under discussion. Doran reflects with intelligence and grace and wit on himself and those with whom he has worked, and on the ways in which they sought to breathe fresh life into a series of plays that, for the most part, audiences think they know well … You'll find it an informative-instructive delight. This year marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, which was met with a deluge of accompanying books. This is the best and most fun. A revelatory and revolutionary breakdown of the canon in a way that works for both the professional and uninitiated. His (obviously tight) grip on Shakespeare's universe is permeated by reverence and deference, but what seeps through the pages is his pure love for his language and characters … It's a joy to (re)discover Shakespeare's plays through his eyes. Whether you are looking for insights into both major and minor works by the Bard, the story of two theatrical giants or a history of the RSC over the last few decades, My Shakespeare is a must-read and must-buy, since this is the kind of thoughtful, well-written and consistently entertaining book that any lover of serious theatre would be delighted to read or receive as a gift. For any budding director who wants to bring Shakespeare to the stage, it could also act as a highly readable manual, offering morsels of intelligent guidance that only come with a lifetime's experience. What runs through this fascinating book is not only [Doran's] passionate commitment, but his belief that Shakespeare holds up a mirror to all our lives and to the tumultuous times in which we live … The results are constantly illuminating … This is a very good book that reminds us that practitioners often make the best commentators … [A] thought-provoking journey through the First Folio. Greg Doran's My Shakespeare generously offers us all the most intimate understanding of what the works of Shakespeare can give us; life with all its tragic and comic masks. Doran writes for the lover of Shakespeare, but allows those tentative about Shakespeare's genius to understand why his storytelling is miraculously both universal and local. My Shakespeare is a worthy addition to the study of Shakespeare's plays in performance - and I'll be damned if it doesn't make me itch to get on stage again, to exercise my acting muscles in the greatest poetry-gym in the English language. Greg Doran's writing, like his productions, comes from an honest, ungimmicky place. He infects the reader with his own curiosity about the world that gave birth to Shakespeare and how and why he still connects with us. He combines an unostentatious erudition with stories of a deeply personal journey from schoolboy visits to the RSC at Stratford to becoming its Artistic Director. I am so glad everyone can now be let in on his revelatory insights and not just those of us who have been lucky enough to be in a rehearsal room with him.