The Bard & The Scottish Play
So as some of you may know I am an actor/stuntman/fight director where I live. Well at least I am trying to do it professionally. I recently had the good fortune to work for a local theatre company (Shakespeare in the Ruins) as thier fight director. The company focuses most of thier efforts on producing Shakespeare's works. However they like to do them in new and interesting ways. For example last summer I did the fight direction for thier Romeo and Juliet, and actually ended up in the show as well, which was performed on the top floor of a parkade. In fact most of thier shows are performed out door, and until recently they used the burnt down remains of this old stone Monastary on the outskirts of the city.
The current project they are doing is for our local childrens theatre called MTYP (Manitoba Theatre for Young people). They did a 1 1/2 hour version of Macbeth with 3 women and 1 man. Tonight was thier opening night and so I went to go watch it and really enjoyed the show.
Imagine watching Shakespeare done in what I can only describe as a post appoctolyptic Scottish setting. The costume and set design inspired by the Rob Zombie look. The music they used for mood and to backup the singing of some of the dialogue was really thrashy and hard. The voices of all the women were manipulated as they changed characters to fill out all the other parts but the lead. It was all put together to put on one of the most erie performances of Macbeth I have ever seen.
I often come out of a show at a local theatre wondering why I don't go more often. Especially since acting is what I would like to do as my profession for the rest of my life. Unfortunately I too easily get sucked into watching movies and TV and find myself with little time and not much money to spend.
Have you seen any interesting theatre recently? If you haven't I suggest giving it a shot. You might be surprised at how good a time you can have.
edit: Forgot to add a link to the Shakespeare in the Ruins website, or S.I.R for short.
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I usually go to the local Shakespeare by the Seaduring the summers. They do most of their shows are outdoors and, except for the occasional rain, it''s a lot better that way.
They did Hamlet last year and used an old fort for the castle scenes (including the pitch-black basement for the ghost of Hamlet''s father to haunt -- very eerie) while trooping us around Point Pleasant Park for everything else. Definitely a great way to keep the audience engaged and involved.
I missed SIR when I was in Winnipeg a few years ago, but I did see Bard on the Beach in Vancouver do Merchant of Venice last summer. In my (horribly biased) opinion, I''d have to say I prefer the shows out here.
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. - Oscar Wilde
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.) - Roedy Green
That production sounds pretty cool, Gaald.
Last summer I saw a MacBeth at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival that also featured one male actor and... I think four women (which I thought at the time was a pretty experimental idea). While the acting was quite good, the set was what stuck with me most. It was performed in an arena theater and the only setpiece was a round pool of blood in the center, about four feet in diameter. When fight/murder/battle scenes came up, the performers would dip their hands in the pool and wield the blood as though it were a dagger or a whip.
I chatted with a technical guy afterwards and learned that the ""blood"" was actually a dyed sugarwater solution that didn''t leave much of a stain, thus preserving the actors'' elaborate costumes and the occasional audience member who got sprinkled.
I grew up near Ashland and used to go to the theaters there all the time. I''ve never been a real Shakespeare fan, but I do enjoy watching it live.
I never minded piracy. Anyone who minds about piracy is full of sh*t. Anyone who pirates your game wasn't going to buy it anyway! -Warren Spector
Sounds cool, I remember years and years ago we watched a group, take all the Richard and Henry plays and put them in a Britian/IRA setting. It worked pretty good.
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