You know something's wrong when Shakespeare's getting a 6.1 on IMDB.
It's obviously not the writing, so, yep, it's the casting. (I would say the acting, but had they cast the right people, we wouldn't have these 'acting' problems.)
After an hour or so, it's just a beating trying to care one iota about any of these characters, most of them being outright deplorable.
The 'staging' of the production is problematic, too. On the one hand, their contemporizing the play has its bright spots, but on the whole it seems terribly overwrought, self-involved, proud, serious, preening, and pretentious.
Shakespeare was so great at winks, nods, and sleight of hand, but here everything feels like cloying, annoying Inside the Actors Studio A C T I N G .
Shakespeare would have hated that malarkey.
Hard pass, brother.
