Shakespeare’s Rome in Rome’s Wooden ‘O’

During the summer of 2003, an idea for a raised wooden stage that might host outdoor performances in Rome’s Villa Borghese park – as part of the celebration of the villa’s centennial as a public garden – quite by accident and with no particular pre-defined cultural platform, materialized in a full scale replica of London’s neoGlobe theatre.1 (See Figures 12.1 and 12.2.)

1 The Silvano Toti Globe Theatre was a gift to the city of Rome on the part of an enlightened modern-day ‘triumvirate’: Walter Veltroni, Rome’s progressive and creative mayor; the Toti brothers, heirs to an important construction firm wanting to commemorate

Figure 12.1 Globe Theatre, Rome, exterior.