A SHAKESPEARE PARTY. To 25 May.
London.
A SHAKESPEARE PARTY
by Footsbarn Theatre.
Shakespeare’s Globe To 25 May 2008.
Runs 2hr 10min One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 May.
Fun-time at the Globe, with spectacle and music.
This is more a Footsbarn Party catered to be William Shakespeare – ‘Stratford Bill’ as he’s called in an irreverent music-hall style song that makes mistakes about him in every verse.
Originating in Cornwall in 1971, the company’s celebrated for their free, highly theatrical Shakespeare productions, performed usually in their tent. They’re a large ensemble, touring the world from their base in France. This show, briefly at the Globe, shows their hallmarks: the opening parade, with music, flamboyant costumes and masks, and a sense of celebration from opening ticker-tape to closing balloons.
As part of the Globe’s 2008 Totus Mundus season, Footsbarn uses all the theatre: stage, including rear and upper stages, Groundlings’ pit, trap-door, Heavens and the door atop the stage-buildings. There are fantasticated costumes and huge masks.
And music. The Dream’s ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ is given a touching edge by the sad music accompanying it, Romeo serenades Juliet in an Italian canzona while action is repeatedly underscored by musicians (the Too Too Solid Flesh ensemble). And the show could do a lot for the cause of jazz bassoon.
Footsbarn makes Shakespeare a crucible for a range of performance skills. A Japanese aerial artist curls gradually down a banner, while Coline Rigot’s Juliet receives Romeo’s attentions from the tightrope she walks more than once, sitting and (somehow) standing again on the wire, or returning to platy the violin at quite an altitude.
But an ensemble living in its own community has its dangers. While the smoky pit and masks of Macbeth’s Witches are fun, there’s an element here and in other parts that harks back to 1950s traditionalism. Verse-speaking, even allowing for an international cast, can be uninteresting, while humour is sometimes laboured and prone to indulge cheap gags.
Still, that happens at parties, few of which could present ideas such as the huge puppet court characters looming over the Mechanicals, or an adipose, three-headed Shakespeare being guided tortuously by a jester towards creating ‘To be or not to be’. The man of substance and the mercurial mind: the image seems to say a lot about this show’s celebrated dedicatee.
Performers: Joseph Cunningham, Paddy Fletcher, Vincent Gracieux, Patrick Hayter, Maurice Horsthuis, Kasia Klebba, Clemence Massart, Muriel Piquart, Nola Rae, Kaka Haris Resic, Coline Rigot, Mas Soegeng, Akemi Yamauchi, Pawel Paluch.
Designer/Masks/Puppets: Fredericka Hayter.
Composer: Maurice Horsthuis.
Costume: Hannah Sjodin.
Balinese Masks: Mas Soegeng.
Footsbarn perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at Tocil Field, Warwick Arts Centre 21-22;24-26 June 7.30pm 024 7652 4524.
2008-05-26 15:36:15