MY DEFENSE OF EMMA RICE. I took the position in 2012, before Emma Rice had come to the Globe, that alternative versions of Shakespeare’s plays that expose more people to the plays are a good thing. I’m sticking to my guns. A lot of critics and audience members liked what they saw. Michael Billington in the Guardian says that her Twelfth Night “palpably pleased the audience”. Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail called her production “the most entertaining, exciting Twelfth Night for years”. And this after (!) the brilliant Shakespeare Globe production starring Mark Rylance as Olivia which we saw in New York in 2014 (I posted on that production here).
I still maintain my lone qualification. Emma Rice can do her innovations in any other theater in the world. The Globe is a unique wonder.