What has influenced your thinking around the production?

I think a big thing which has influenced my thinking on the production has been about what a forest is and what it represents. I did a lot of reading into the way forests function and the societal behaviour of trees. I was quite determined not to have any trees on stage, mainly because everybody kept asking me how are you going to do the trees?!

But actually, when you look into trees and their behaviour, they’re extraordinary. There’s a network of roots in a forest, so all the trees are connected to each other. If one tree is struggling then other trees who have enough, will send nutrients to try and save that other tree through the root system, regardless of species.  They believe – it sounds ridiculous(!) – the success of the forest depends on the success of every single tree within that forest.  I took that as a metaphor for society, and what Shakespeare is asking us to think about as audience members watching this play, especially right now in a time of increased borders and a rise of – you could say – nationalism, and concern with ourselves.

In the play there’s a marked difference between the restrictive world of the court and the forest.  In our version of the play the audience will represent the trees. When the play reaches the forest scenes, the actors will be able to see the audience, whereas they didn’t have access to them during the court scenes.  The forest world is a world where we can interact and communicate with each other.

You have said this production was all about putting the ‘you’ in As You Like It – can you tell us a bit about what you mean by that and how will this be reflected in the staging?

I think putting the ‘You’ in As You Like It is something that Shakespeare has done with this play – he’s constantly playing with the relationship between the actors and the audience, and lots of the characters in the play go between being characters, being spectators, being actors – he’s referring to the act of theatre constantly (“All the world’s a stage”). And so I think Shakespeare is asking us as theatre-makers to reconsider our relationship to the audience, making the audience feel that their presence in the theatre matters, that it changes what we’re doing. And they can be directly involved with what’s happening on the stage – so we’re really embracing that with the production.

I think it’s also reflected in the actors that are part of this show, and the other two plays that are part of the same season.  We want the acting company to reflect the nation in all its diversity.  This play was written at a time when society was becoming more diverse, and the play itself is about celebrating and embracing difference.

What are your current thoughts on the style of the production? Can you give us any early insights into the process?

I’m not setting the play in a particular time or place.  It doesn’t feel like a play which needs a certain period setting. And I’m very aware as a director of not choosing a setting which restricts the play, and that only tells one aspect of the play so I always look for the approach and the framework that allows all of the play to live.

In many ways the play is a massive exploration of theatre itself.  So there will be elements of panto, live music, stand-up comedy on stage.  And there will be audience interaction, political debate and improvisation.

Although everyone will look and feel very modern, we’ll be using a real mingle-mangle of costumes from different productions, and will be playing with different genres, different times, different periods.  It’s going to be a real mish-mash that celebrates the art of theatre making.

Would you say As You Like It is as much about ‘finding yourself’ as ‘getting lost’?

I think sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself. But Shakespeare isn’t asking us to get lost in order to just get lost – that would be pointless. He’s asking us to break down some of our barriers and to think outside of the boxes that we’ve put ourselves in, or that society has put us in.  And he puts the responsibility on the human being to do that for one’s self. I think the play is about the potential for change in humanity, and for us to be able to change the world we must first change ourselves and embrace other sides of ourselves.

We understand that this production features one of the most ambitious props and set elements ever created by the RSC’s production teams. Can you explain a little bit about where the idea for ‘Hymen’ came about?

Hymen is the god of marriage, which will be represented by a very large prop/puppet We have to believe in this God and yet, God is not a tangible thing. God is a leap of imagination, so how do we get 1000 audience members to take that leap in their imaginations and believe in this God? All of the actors will be involved in the scene in which Hymen appears – it will be a communal act, to give the sense of coming together and believing in a God or in something bigger than ourselves.

The role of Rosalind has been described as ‘the female Hamlet’ and is credited with more lines than any other female Shakespearean character. Was this something that attracted you to the play?

Yes absolutely!  I was attracted to a woman who is working out who she is as the play unfolds. I think sometimes with Shakespeare’s women, it feels like they already know who they are. Or that their internal life isn’t really the thing that Shakespeare is exploring in the play. With Rosalind it’s completely different. She changes her mind all the time, and she changes her mind with us, with the audience.

She talks about this magician, this uncle magician, who she’s conversed with since the age of 3, and Lucy Phelps, who is playing the role, and I have talked a lot about who on earth this magician is. We feel that this magician is inside of all of us, representing the potential for change and to be different people.  The play is really all about Rosalind having a conversation with herself to find a way to contentment, and that’s not easy.  Sometimes you have to crawl through the dirt to get to the diamond. 

Many well known actors have played Rosalind for the RSC, including Peggy Aschroft, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Juliet Stevenson, and more recently, Katy Stephens and Pippa Nixon. What do you think Lucy Phelps will bring to the role?

Ah, Lucy Phelps! I think Lucy is relentlessly intelligent and rigorous in what she as an actress and as a woman wants from the world, and she does all of that with generosity and with the most infectious spirit.  I think you have to have both of those things to play Rosalind. And that’s something that she has very, very naturally.

Lucy’s never satisfied as an artist.  She’s always digging, she’s always chipping away.  But if you chip, chip, chip away in rehearsal, and then walk on stage and you’ve stopped chipping because you’ve decided what it is, then you’ve lost Rosalind – whereas Lucy has the bravery as an actress, to keep discovering… to keep searching…  

What do you hope audiences will take away from this production? 

I would like for the audience to take away a new relationship with their own ‘magician’.  To feel able to explore the possibility and potential of change, especially right now, with all of the uncertainty in this country and Europe and the rest of the world.  To feel that change is possible, and that change can come from working together, learning from each other and from being more honest.  Being brave enough to jump off the cliff into the unknown.

If you were given the chance to escape to the forest, what three things would you take with you?

My dog, Plato.

My husband.

And a really good walking stick!

That’s certainly what Handlebards do. The company cycling actors who carry all the set, props and costume needed to perform extremely energetic, charmingly chaotic and environmentally sustainable Shakespeare plays.

What’s not to love?

Especially when they are hosted by The Marlowe Theatre and performing on a sunny evening at Greyfriars Gardens, just down from The Marlowe’s new space, The Kit. Picnic and drinks at the ready, it was an ideal place to soak up some culture – and raise a few smiles.

In Much Ado About Nothing we see each one of the four male actors take on multiple parts, clearly differentiated by cycling bibs and handlebars. Audience participation was ramped up, and we had two very open and enthusiastic participants take on parts when it was called for. Slapstick came to the fore – as it would have done for the groundlings in Shakespeare’s day – and they played with language and lyricism to make the plot skip along without losing any of the quick wit that the play relies on. Cross dressing, a bit of drunkenness, and a lot of laughs all come to the fore, and make the two hours skip along merrily for all involved. Plotting, frivolity and capers ensue, and the audience is kept captivated and excited as the troupe bounce of each other and the audience.

It’s all enormously good fun. Which is sometimes just how Shakespeare should be.

Why and how did you set up the Canterbury Shakespeare Festival?

Ben Chamberlain founded the festival in 2014 with the help of his father Andy to provide a place for the people of Canterbury to display and share their love of the Bard. It was created to give people a beautiful summer’s evening in the picturesque surroundings that Canterbury offers. It was also created to make theatre more accessible to our local community, and to give local actors and creatives the chance to do something amazing in their summer. The current Festival Board of Directors took over from Ben at the end of last year’s festival, although Ingrid has been involved on the committee since the third year. Elliot, the Artistic Director, has been the only director to direct a play in every season and was a natural choice for Artistic Director, and Charlotte has been heavily involved both on and off stage since the start. Together we aim to continue Ben and Andy’s ideas and grow the festival in every way.

Why did you choose the particular plays you have this season?

We have an open selection process – we ask directors to send in their ideas for a play for the festival. We then meet with them individually, the Festival Board and the director, and they pitch their play to us. We then go away and discuss, and choose our plays from that selection. This year, the plays almost all fell nicely into an arena of mental health – Timon of Athens, Lear and Hamlet all deal with the subject in different ways. Merry Wives is a little different, in that it’s more playful, and Mary Stuart is a departure for us as we’ve never performed a play not strictly related to Shakespeare before. However, Oliver and Andrew convinced the Board that Schiller would do the festival proud.

Did Shakespeare ever come to Canterbury?

There’s no evidence to suggest that he did come to Canterbury, but on the flip side of that, there’s no evidence to suggest that he didn’t! As best we know, his company, The King’s Men, did perform in Fordwich, a tiny village not too distant from here, so it’s not unlikely. However, Canterbury itself was very puritanical at that time, so the fact they performed in Fordwich suggests that they were performing there because they weren’t allowed into the city proper.

Why is Shakespeare still relevant?

Wow, that’s a big question, and one I get asked frequently. I think Shakespeare is still relevant because he wrote human stories. The characters in his plays are living, breathing human beings, not two dimensional caricatures. Their speeches encapsulate the human condition so well, and you can see every character’s point of view – they aren’t necessarily defined heroes and villains, but more on a scale. Sure, some are worse than others (nobody’s here defending Iago) but Shakespeare shows us their motivations for their actions whether they’re killing a king, assassinating a dictator, or usurping the throne. We also have such a wide range of genres and styles in his plays – arguably more so than any other writer ever – he tries his hand at farce, high drama, romance, tragedy, history, comedy, even ghost stories. And in every single play there’s something, whether it’s a line, a monologue or a whole story line, that has captured the public’s imagination and survived the 400-odd years.

One of your aims is to make theatre accessible. How do you do this?

Well, first of all, every year we perform a show that is free to attend, so that anybody can come. We also cast almost everybody who auditions, regardless of experience, so that the maximum number of people can be involved. We aim to reach people who have limited or no previous access to Shakespeare, and this is true not just for our audience, but our actors and production roles too. When choosing directors, we don’t look for experience, but merely a passion for the play they are pitching.

Kent based Changeling Theatre sure know Hamlet, and this summer celebrate their twentieth anniversary by touring the play around the South East. VThe company is founded on the idea that every community deserves to be able to see quality theatre, and so will be heading to beaches, gardens and castles in all sorts of spots to ensure a wide and varied audience can experience the wonder of Shakespeare.

Visiting over thirty venues and locations in total, the varied sites add a magical and unique quality to each performance. It’s a challenge for director Rob Forknall and designer Clare Southern, especially as the dark play is usually performed inside at darker venues. Yet they’ve managed to develop an atmosphere that the ten-strong cast – led by Alex Phelps as Hamlet – infuse with passion and soul.

Changeling Theatre have a reputation for charming, potent and captivating performances. Can they work their magic on Hamlet? See for yourself this summer.

Tickets start at £10 and are available here.

Theatre is a living and breathing medium, language a lively form, and Shakespeare a playwright for all times. Yet too often it can be stifling, rigid, and uniform as it follows rules and plays at being ‘proper.’ But when it comes to seeing an art form you know well, it’s not enough just to have to have it replayed. Instead, as Lee McGowan said about locative literature,  ‘Like a Hobnob in a hot brew, I want to dunk all my other senses in it too.’

Creation Theatre take A Midsummer Night’s Dream and make it a reality, all on the streets of Clapham with Omnibus Theatre. Part performance and part treasure hunt, we become both actors and audiences in the build up to Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s wedding.

Few productions have the audience sent on cryptic quests, required to sing for freedom, bundled into vans and carry gifts to the happy couples – but that’s part of the magic of this dream. Few productions also have adults weeping with laughter and sheer silliness and spontaneity. Boundaries broken, it does start to all feel a bit fantastical.

Inhibitions and purism won’t really be welcome here, as scheming fairies and talented actors twist and contort the text.  A clever use of digital makes the magical scenes even more evanescent than a traditional theatre space, and technology becomes an enhancing medium. Even though Rolos, estate agents and Clapham aren’t in the original Folio Shakespeare did shift and change things for his time, responding both to current events and the groundlings the company performed in front of.

Bottom and Patsy Quince are played outstandingly well by Rhodri Lewis and Shelley Atkins, Giles Stoakley is convincing and engaging as Egeus, and brilliant energy comes from Natasha Rickman as Helena and Lucy Pearson in the role of small yet fierce Hermia.

Far from a passive audience, we become energetic parts to the performance. Director Zoe Seaton describes it as ‘free range’ theatre and it’s certainly more exhilarating and expansive than most immersive theatre. Cleverly done, our group of four – Hippolyta’s second cousins and thus wedding guests – were given clues and meeting places to solve, and followed our own trail without tripping over any other ‘guests’ until we all joined back together for the finale wedding picnic.

Creation have done something rather magical in their offering of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s not just interactive, but engaging, visceral and bold. Tricky to describe without giving it away, let’s just say that your trip to Athens will challenge all your preconceptions about theatre, Shakespeare, and Clapham.

Running from June 16th – 30th at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham. Tickets are available here.

]]> https://andsoshethinks.co.uk/creating-a-midsummer-nights-dream-in-clapham/feed/ 0 https://andsoshethinks.co.uk/review-much-ado-about-nothing-selfridges-the-refashioned-theatre/ https://andsoshethinks.co.uk/review-much-ado-about-nothing-selfridges-the-refashioned-theatre/#respond Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:48:15 +0000 https://andsoshethinks.wordpress.com/?p=6516 Read the original post on State of the Arts

Shakespeare Refashioned, Selfridges’ conflation of culture and consumerism (although have the two ever really been separate?) have added Much Ado About Nothing to their innovative programme of events that aim to both celebrate the Bard, and make him accessible to everyone in a riotous production crafted by theatre company The Faction.

Director Mark Lepacher and his cast of nine promise a ‘contemporary aesthetic’ that both remains true to the original and notes the continued relevance of appearance, image, rumour, and social standing to the society we live in. Via a television screen with Meera Syal as a Messina News reporter (also the CCTV to show Simon Callow and Rufus Hound as bumbling Dogberry and Verges), bright lights and chart hits, Leonato, played by Caroline Langrishe, becoming a feisty matriarch in a pacey performance, they’ve managed to daub the play in a modern flourish.

And, this being Selfridges, the contemporary twist is primarily portrayed through the clothing, with Beatrice’s shoes proving particularly distracting. With no scenery but a stage more evocative of a runway, there’s certainly a sense of glamour.

As always it’s the banter between Beatrice and Benedick that really makes this play infectious. The smart and sassy Beatrice is played by the excellent Alison O’Donnell, caught in the merry war with Benedick, Daniel Boyd revelling in a flamboyant performance that perfectly portrayed the linguistic wit of Shakespeare’s words. They’re a very different couple to the innocent Claudio and Hero (Harry Lister Smith and Lowri Izzard) also well performed, but as characters never as endearing to the audience.

The speed of the production (coming in at just over 100 minutes) makes it even more painfully apparent the lack of character, depth, and opportunity afforded Hero. Admired for her beauty, with no opportunity to express personality, bartered like a possession, this is not feminist power at its best. It’s unsettling that her mother and father are prepared to pretend that she has died, that Claudio is happy to replace the girl he was dizzingly in love with for one who looks just like her, especially if she now has twice the inheritance on offer too, and that a woman’s word can be so easily dismissed for the sake of honour.

But that’s a criticism of the play itself, or the play’s criticism of society itself, or whatever other complex layer that Shakespeare was trying to achieve, rather than of the Faction’s production. There’s something that feels slightly uncomfortable about criticising Shakespeare — and I feel uncomfortable even admitting that, even as this paragraph starts to get meta.

As in all of Shakespeare’s comedies, the duping and tricks are foolish, the masquerade unconvincing, and the crimes easily uncovered, exacerbated in part by the fast pace of the production. But when crackling dialogue is delivered with nimble eloquence and timing like tonight, realism is a small price to play. Swift paced and bold, with an innovative gaze, this is retail therapy at its best.

Beginning with a Callow’s impassioned reading of Sonnet 87, the room was silenced. The experience of love is an individual one, yet all could relate to it. In fact Callow believes that Shakespeare’s quintessential point is our shared humanity and that we’re all in it together.

Griffiths discussed how Shakespeare helped her out of manic depression, although seemed a little quick to see the illness evident in every one of Shakespeare’s characters, including Hamlet, Lear, Antonio, Prospero and more.

There’s much do be learned from Shakespeare, on practical, psychological and emotional levels.  ‘Shakespeare’s plays are always on three levels: the soul, mind, body. He speaks to each level, but primarily to the soul.’ And he does it across the canon and in solo lies. Reading from Hamlet 2.2.2 Okri remarks that in only a few sentences Shakespeare speaks of the highest and basest levels of humanity, the sea, sky and solar system, heavens and hell…and then back again to the specific moment.

The debates about what Shakespeare would have made of Brexit and the language of Twitter (probably run with it and changed it, just like he did with most of the English language) were less powerful than the exploration of Shakespeare’s role at capturing the universal.

Bibliotherapy is predicated on the idea that reading and literature has a powerful effect. It’s not only that it makes us feel better though. Research from Professor Philip Davis from the University of Liverpool’s School of English says that Shakespeare’s language actually ‘shift mental pathways and open possibilities’ for what the brain can do. Stories and words are immensely powerful, for all people and all times. In our scientific and tech heavy age we can be too quick to dismiss their value. As Okri said, Shakespeare ‘speaks to our souls through fairytales. They are simple, but also complex and deadly.’ But also life affirming, which is why Shakespeare still matters.

A gender reversed version, where females play males and vice versa, it’s a little difficult to get your head around the characters to begin with, and not only because of how they look. Helena (Matthew McFetridge) is a red bearded man, and a man has ‘duty’ to his mother.  ‘A scandal on my sex’ feels different when spoken by a man, and it’s almost uncomfortable to see him on his knees begging. All of this just proves how stereotyped our perceptions are and how gendered norms infiltrate everywhere. I never noticed before how Helena’s words ‘Two lovely berries moulded on one stem’ are so phallic until spoken by a man, or how a gentleman fearing a Bottom’s (Ailis Duff) lion is even more ludicrous than women. Charlotte Mulliner plays a brilliant Lysander, and Matt Maltby as Hermia brings out the indignation of being ‘low’ brilliantly.

Super fastpaced (just under two hours with an interval) it’s a bold performance that manages to be entertaining and provoke thoughts to consider. Sometimes confusing and certainly irreverent, a small cast where actors double up makes things even trickier. But it’s worth persevering, especially in a setting where chaos reigns. In fact, it’s a really brilliant way to raise the issue of gender roles and the power of the sexes, without overtly pressing it home. One small change to casting and the rest is in the power of the audience as they engage with the story.

Comedic and physical, touching and delicate, it’s a brilliantly executed performance that feels magical. Raising issues relevant to the era in which it’s performed, and exploring emotions and experiences universal to time and place, it is feels like it is exactly what Shakespeare intended.

Directed by Laura Jasper, tickets are selling out fast so head here as soon as you can. If you miss out you can find out about future productions on the Reversed Shakespeare Company’s website.

• A man chases a woman through a wood begging her to love him.
• Five incompetent women try, and fail, to put on a play to impress the royals.
• The king of the fairies falls madly in love with a woman disguised as a donkey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZWRhDcBB5I
If that all sounds a little different to what you’ve come to expect, that’s the idea. The Reversed Shakespeare Company was set up in 2015 by Lindsay Dukes, Cassie Webb and Matthew Maltby, and between them played roles from Romeo to Beatrice, via Miranda, Marina, Iago and Third Lord. Recognising that women make up 16% of Shakespeare’s characters, Women speak as few as 0.67% of the lines in some of Shakespeare’s plays, such as Timon of Athens, yet 68% of the London theatregoing audience is female there might be more for female actors to do than, in Lindsay’s words just be, ‘dragged across the stage as Lavinia or paraded in the brothel as Marina.’
They also wanted to see what would happen if men could see and experience the sort of vulnerability afforded to Shakespeare’s women but not to his male characters and in the process ask some questions. Are women and men all capable of the same actions, feelings and beliefs? How do women woo, and can men be wooed? Is vulnerability reserved only for the physically weak? Can a woman hold the space that men seem to have inherited naturally?
And crucially, can a woman with a donkey’s head and a need to steal the spotlight really win over the fairy king?
The debut production runs at The Pleasance Theatre from March 16^th-27^th, and features a programme of talks and discussions. Tickets are available here.