The Shakespeare Machines: RSC vs. Globe vs. Donmar

Three Approaches to One Writer

London has three institutions dedicated, in different ways, to Shakespeare. The Royal Shakespeare Company operates from Stratford-upon-Avon and the Barbican. Shakespeare's Globe sits on the South Bank, a reconstruction of the 1599 playhouse. The Donmar Warehouse, a 251-seat studio in Covent Garden, includes Shakespeare in a broader contemporary programme.

Each approaches the same texts with radically different assumptions about what Shakespeare is for.

The RSC: Industrial Shakespeare

The RSC is the largest Shakespeare-producing organisation in the world. It mounts multiple productions simultaneously, operates a repertory company, and maintains a house style that has evolved over decades. The RSC Shakespeare is big: large casts, ambitious sets, long running times, comprehensive programme notes.

At its best, the RSC production is definitive — the version against which all others are measured. Gregory Doran's Henry IV cycle, Nicholas Hytner's Henry V, and Antony Sher's Richard III are landmark interpretations that expanded understanding of familiar texts.

At its weakest, the RSC can feel institutional: competent but predictable, thoroughly researched but dramatically inert. The house style — clear verse-speaking, strong scenic design, responsible textual scholarship — can become a formula.

The Globe: Archaeological Shakespeare

The Globe's project is reconstructive. Performances take place in an open-air, daylit, standing-audience space that approximates Elizabethan conditions. Actors use original pronunciation experiments, period instruments, and staging conventions derived from historical research. The audience is visible, audible, and participatory.

This approach yields remarkable discoveries. Comedies become funnier when the actors can see and respond to the audience. Soliloquies become more intimate when delivered in shared light. The plays' relationship to their original performance conditions — outdoor, communal, distractible — becomes tangible.

The limitation is scholarly. The Globe's commitment to historical practice can shade into antiquarianism — a fascination with how things were that obscures the question of why they matter now.

The Donmar: Concentrated Shakespeare

The Donmar's small space forces a different relationship between actor and text. There is nowhere to hide. Scenic design is minimal. The verse must carry the drama unaided.

The results can be electric. Josie Rourke's Measure for Measure, which split the action between a Jacobean court and a modern immigration hearing, used the intimate space to create claustrophobic intensity. Michael Grandage's cycle of Shakespeare productions in the 2000s demonstrated that the plays gain power when stripped of spectacle.

The risk is austerity. A 251-seat Shakespeare can feel like a private reading rather than a theatrical event. The plays were written for a large audience in a large space. Scaling them down sometimes means scaling them back.

What Each Teaches

The RSC teaches us that Shakespeare rewards investment — that these are big plays that benefit from big resources. The Globe teaches us that Shakespeare rewards experiment — that historical context unlocks meaning we cannot access through modern conventions alone. The Donmar teaches us that Shakespeare rewards focus — that the language, given space, does more than any set or lighting rig.

All three are right. None is sufficient alone. The healthiest Shakespeare ecology is one in which multiple approaches coexist, compete, and cross-pollinate. London is fortunate to have all three.