“… polished, beautifully made series from director/producer Sally McLean … A fine use of the platform and, more importantly, a very fine adaptation of the Bard … Shakespeare Republic is put together with grace and wit. An assortment of actors do terrific work making the (non-dumbed down) dialogue accessible, prying it open with great care and skill.”
BORROWERS AND LENDERS: THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION (UK)
https://borrowers-ojs-azsu.tdl.org/borrowers/article/view/95/188
“McLean’s combined expertise is on full display in Shakespeare Republic, which features both a critical eye and ear to Shakespeare’s text, and high production values for a series of this kind … The vignettes are themselves a metaphorical gauntlet thrown down to the viewer, daring them to imagine what a full production in this world might look like … Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay any artist is that they left me wanting more, and Shakespeare Republic has done exactly that.”
SHAKESPEARE BULLETIN MAGAZINE (UK)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/845254
“Taken on their own, the individual episodes that make up Shakespeare Republic: The Lockdown Chronicles are great examples of how to take moments from Shakespeare’s plays and make them resonate for contemporary audiences. It is as a cumulative experience, however, that the series is at its most effective; to watch all twenty-four episodes is to relive those horrible first months of the pandemic. Although no series could hope to capture the totality of experience under coronavirus, Shakespeare Republic: The Lockdown Chronicles is a powerful reminder of the ecological lesson of interrelatedness.”
STAREABLE.COM (USA)
“Sally McLean creates, adapts, directs and is even an ensemble member of the award-winning web series Shakespeare Republic, now in its second season. Taking the world by storm … done in an inventive, captivating way … the entire series is astonishingly smart.”
STARRY MAG (USA)
https://starrymag.com/web-series-wednesday-shakespeare-republic/
“Shakespeare Republic is an anthology series that turns the playwright’s classics on their head. By embracing diversity and bringing the traditional text into a more contemporary world, creator Sally McLean set out to engage new audiences and make Shakespeare more accessible … There was a lot to love and even more to admire. I couldn’t believe how glued to my screen I was with each episode … it’s some of the best Shakespeare I’ve ever seen put on and in a creative and timely way.”
THEATER PEOPLE (USA)
“… magnificent interpretations of some of Shakespeare’s most well known monologues and soliloquies filmed gorgeously in contemporary settings.”
SHAKESPEARE TWENTYSCORE (AUSTRALIA)
“… beautifully produced soliloquies from Shakespeare’s most famous characters, interpreted by a wide range of talented actors.”
THE SHAKESPEARE BLOG (UK)
” … Shakespeare Republic … a series of stand-alone episodes, each one featuring one of Shakespeare’s monologues or sonnets, with a slightly modern twist … a sophisticated twenty-first century series with its own particularly Australian flavour.”
BE MELBOURNE
“Shakespeare’s place in modern life is often questioned, so it’s lucky film and theatre aficionado Sally Mclean has a passion for the Bard’s work. Speaking Daggers shows the best of Shakespeare.”
THE PLUS ONES
“For many decades key research has shown that the arts are a medium which has linked disparate fields naturally, since day one of its evolutionary practice … Speaking Daggers is one shining example.”
THE BRITISH SHAKESPEARE ASSOCIATION BLOG
https://www.britishshakespeare.ws/creating-meaning-through-shakespeare-in-and-out-of-lockdown-walking-shadows/
“Where The Lockdown Chronicles uses Shakespeare to make sense of a rapidly changing global situation as people around the world were thrust into isolation, Walking Shadows returns to Shakespeare to find meaning in what normality means now that the restrictions of the past two years are largely no longer in place.
The first episode of Walking Shadows features Alyssa Kale performing Luciana’s speech from The Comedy of Errors … McLean transforms the comedic case of mistaken identity into a serious monologue. Kale stands in her kitchen speaking directly into the camera, positioning the viewer as the source of her unwanted attention. The effect is one of discomfort, the actor and director forcing the viewer to suddenly and unexpectedly be thrust into proximity and conspiracy with Luciana. Lines such as ‘Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty’ (3.1.11) take on a newly sinister sense, further punctuated by Kale’s restless delivery as if constantly on edge.
The feeling of uneasiness displayed by Kale and engendered in the viewer encapsulates Walking Shadows’s wider framing device of emerging from lockdown … McLean’s episode encapsulates the conflicting experience of regaining at least some of the freedoms lost during lockdown. Whilst they may not have experienced the same situation as Luciana, watching the first episode of Walking Shadows, the audience see reflected in her their own anxieties and apprehensions from the past two years.”
To see all the reviews for Shakespeare Republic (Seasons One, Two & Three), visit: https://shakespearerepublic.com/what-others-are-saying/
SOME QUICK STATISTICS ABOUT OUR SHAKESPEARE PROJECTS
(Numbers for all projects combined)
