The Lurking Place of E. Rochelle Potter
Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Michael Sinkora) secretly watches as the prank against Malvolio begins. *Image produced with respective permissions.
A True Shakespeareience
Do you think Shakespeare synonymous with boring? Do you remember reading Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet in high school, reflect upon the tricky language and memories of slogging through the reading as a class and further interest suffers a quick and painful death? Worse, you may have been shown a badly done film version of one of The Bard’s plays by some well-intended teacher and now you’ve really got a jaded view! This is an insult to the memory of the greatest wordsmith of all time!
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A very wise woman taught me the tremendous difference between reading Shakespeare and seeing Shakespeare. And seeing Shakespeare done right is a different animal altogether—not extinct but surely an endangered species!
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Now, you may be asking what I mean by all this so let me explain. What I’m referring to is known as Original Practices. In Shakespeare’s time there were no elaborate sets or lighting effects. There were just the actors (players) in their costumes with
a few props. Much relied upon the written word and the players’ wit. More importantly still: there was no fourth wall—that invisible barrier that generally exists between audience and play. Nay, with Original Practices the players don’t just perform in front of you, pretending you are not there. The performers play to their audience. It is a fully immersive experience where audience members may suddenly find themselves part of the show!
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Very few companies today actually perform Shakespeare the way The Bard meant it to be played though: Shakespeare’s Globe in London; Blackfriar’s in Staunton Virginia. And now there is Will Kempe’s Players out of Troy New York.
I had the privilege of seeing their performance of Twelfth Night over the weekend and what a rare treat! When so much relies upon what Shakespeare wrote and how the players can physically manifest those words instead of relying upon contrived theatrical notions, much more meaning is carried through! Words and phrases that you may balk at if you were just looking at them written on paper suddenly become startlingly clear. The theatre has always held a certain fascination for me but witnessing the collective epiphany with a performance like this is truly magical. As if things couldn’t get better, I had my daughter with me.
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She has no experience with Shakespeare to speak of. She once found me reading an old collection of The Bard's comedies and promptly asked me, “How can you read that??” Somewhere in the back of her mind, despite my warnings to the contrary, she’d already begun to develop that “Shakespeare is boring” attitude that many are never able to overcome. When I invited her to attend this performance with me she accepted simply because she enjoys plays in general. When I informed her that the show would be performed using Original Practices and explained what that meant, she was dismayed, if not downright mortified. “Wait, they’re performing outside? What do you mean there’s no set?” She had no idea what she was in for!
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If witnessing the collective epiphany of strangers is magical, watching my daughter undergo such a transformation in the span of a couple hours was nothing short of a miracle. There’s nothing like watching the gears click into place and the light bulb go on, shining with such brilliant illumination that it darn near explodes. She was laughing at things she would never understand had she been merely reading the lines. To read about Malvolio smiling is drastically different from seeing the near-painful, almost frightening (and above all HILARIOUS) grimaces this stoic and serious man bestows upon the audience as he attempts to do something he is not at all accustomed to doing.
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The rambunctious antics of Feste the Jester, Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek and their prankish plotting with Maria against Malvolio; Countess Olivia’s infatuation with Cesario and Viola’s horrified revulsion at the situation she’s found herself in; Orsino’s love, wantonly dismissed by Olivia but yearned for by Viola—all come to life in ways that would be downright impossible if performed at the audience rather than to them. Not to mention the bawdy sexual innuendos that proliferate throughout the text but may otherwise die there if not for these talented players. When Malvolio said “These be her very C’s, her U’s and her T’s and thus makes she her great P’s,” and my daughter asked me “shouldn’t there be an N in there?” I nearly died laughing; impressed that the joke wasn’t lost on her.
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When she turned to me during the second intermission and excitedly started explaining how Orsino was in love with Olivia but Olivia was in love with his servant Cesario who is really Viola in disguise and Sebastian is her twin brother whom she believes to be dead I couldn’t help but nod and smile knowingly at her enthusiasm and respond with, “Welcome to Shakespeare done right.” Add to this marvel Feste plopping down right next to her during the show and offering a stick of pepperoni he’d been eating or Sir Andrew deciding her mother was a prime candidate for an impromptu dance partner and you have an experience like no other. By the end of the show my daughter wanted to join them!
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Still think Shakespeare sounds boring? If you’ve never seen it done the right way, I challenge you to do so! I promise it’s an eye-opening decision you will never regret! For more information on Will Kempe’s players visit their website https://www.willkempesplayers.com or follow them on Facebook.
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