CONTRIBUTED
Members of the troupe from Grand Valley State University, Michigan. who staged 'Love Struck' in Jamaica as part of the 'Bard To Go' series which gives snippets of Shakespeare plays in different settings.
Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
In today's world where one can have everything 'to go', as we try to keep pace with life's rat race, it is not surprising that now one can have his/her Shakespeare in nugget size. The 'Bard to Go' is a part of the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival put on by the Grand Valley State University, Michigan.
The group leaves the island today after a series of performances at high schools around the island and at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA)
Dubbed Love Struck, the show presents an amalgam of scenes from some of Shakespeare's plays, served up in dollar menu sizes. There are scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet and The Tempest.
Travelling light
The 'Bard to Go' concept has been a part of the Shakespeare festival for four years and Love Struck was the 2004 rendition of the show. As its name suggests, it is created to travel light, with no attention to light, minimal costuming and props and much of the changes take place before the audience.
The Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival is Michigan's oldest and largest Shakespeare festival, with 2004 being its 11th staging.
Along with 'Bard to Go', the 2004 festival also featured a
rendition of Measure for Measure and a Renaissance festival.
When The Sunday Gleaner arrived at the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre at the EMCVPA on Tuesday night, the stage was littered with football helmets, trunks and myriad other paraphernalia which, to the untrained eye, would suggest that nothing to do with Shakespeare was about to take place. There are also various screens with the words respect, fear, doubt, strength, temptation, desire, hatred and others written on them.
To the detriment of countless bored children, the name Shakespeare often evokes images of men in tights and throat ruffles and women wearing far too many layers of clothing as they speak a distant relation of English.
Though they can easily navigate the tongue-twisting enigma of Nelly, Shakespeare's English seems insurmountable. That is, until someone points out that amidst the 'marrys', 'thees' and 'thous', lie tales of sex, violence, incest, murder and betrayal.
That actually is the point of Love Struck. According to the show's director, the play
presents a road in for students.
She admits that the play is "Shakespeare light".
The 'Bard To Go' is deliberately constructed, she explained, to last 50 minutes so that it can fit into the average school session in the United States and leave time for questions.
She explained that although the 'Bard To Go' (which features mainly farce) presents a light version of the stories, it is expected that the teachers would pick up from where the show ends and navigate the journey into the deeper aspects of the stories.
A part of the beauty of Shakespeare is that one can do so much with him or, at least, his works and it stays intact.
Reflect culture
In this case, the plays are made to reflect American culture, with the exception of the excerpt from Hamlet, which keeps with the period costumes. So the excerpt from A Midsummer Night's Dream features two footballers (the American version), a band geek and a cheerleader who has clearly been chewing so much gum the air has gone to her head.
In The Merchant of Venice, Portia and Nerissa become two women at the beach. The Taming of the Shrew takes a trip to the American south, where Katarina and Petruchio become two hillbillies.
Libman argues that that it is perfectly in keeping with theatre in the Elizabethan era, when actors performed under threat of fruit and vegetables to perform the comedies as farce.
The plays bear up well under this treatment and come out as entertaining introductions to the various pieces. The students are filled with energy and the
production is fast-paced enough to keep even Bart Simpson's attention. It begins with a stomp routine which might be outside of the pentameter, but it is
certainly attention getting.
Engage the audience
Love Struck is designed to engage the audience and the players often walk into the
audience or speak directly to members of the audience so as to keep their interest in the show.
"I think too many people play Shakespeare safe," says Amy Larink, in a brief discussion which followed their rehearsal. "I think personally, Shakespeare might be a little offended."
These excerpts play fast and loose with the more bawdy aspects of the bard's works but, as Libman explained, none of the words have been changed and therefore it was all there to begin with.
Megan Johnson notes that the production has worked as a way for students to realise that Shakespeare is not an un-negotiable morass of boredom.
She explains that one of the best compliments the group, which has toured several Michigan high schools, has received is when a student declared: "Wow that's Shakespeare and I actually understood it."
And, in a world where the question "who is Shakespeare?" might meet the answer "isn't that a bad", understanding is about as much as any literature teacher can ask for.
