As a company
member of ten years with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, I’ve often wondered
what other Shakespeare theatres and festivals around the world do. The
Shakespeare Theatre Association boasts more than 100 participating members;
that’s a lot of viewpoints and ideas on how to most effectively interpret and
present the works of history’s most produced playwright. And aside from an
annual conference and a few interpersonal relationships, I am unaware of any
serious working partnerships from company to company. I’ve always wanted to
find out how I would work with a theatre that dives head first into creating
conceptual theatre with Shakespeare’s plays, or reimagines them in a more
contemporary setting. What about the other way around? How would someone who
deals solely in the world of fourth-wall realism manage working with us, a
group dedicated to acknowledging the audience and everything else in the room?
If I, as a director, took our style to a theatre that is known for reinterpreting
the text, how would that cast and audience respond?
At times, I
have felt slightly insulated from the world of other Shakespeare practitioners.
I don’t get the opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas and opinions with
other artists who have a whole different set of experiences with these
magnificent plays. I want to understand more about how other Shakespeare
company mission statements were developed and how those missions are realized.
For a few
days this July, I had the opportunity to visit the American Shakespeare Center
in Staunton, VA. I had reached out to Sarah Enloe, their Director of Education,
about working together to learn a little more about each other’s respective
companies. I knew that we each had a high school summer camp, that we had (on
paper, at least) similar approaches to how to most effectively perform the
works of William Shakespeare, and we have a fledgling touring production
program that could certainly learn a lot from the experiences of the company
formerly known as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. But I wanted a more
first-hand experience with their performance style in order to have a more
comprehensive understanding of how the American Shakespeare Center and the
Atlanta Shakespeare Company are alike and how we are different.
(Author’s
note: In order to save some space and prevent too much confusion for the rest
of this article, I will be referring to the American Shakespeare Center as
ASCVA and the Atlanta Shakespeare Company as ASCATL.)
On my visit,
I got to watch ASCVA’s production of Antony
and Cleopatra, a show in which I have performed twice in two different
roles. I was fascinated by the differences in how our two companies put similar
concepts into practice. While we use what we call “Original Practices,” ASCVA follows
what they call “Shakespeare’s Rehearsal Conditions.” The ideas are very similar
at their core: we attempt to present Shakespeare’s works in a manner that is as
close to the Elizabethan experience as possible, and doing so in a modern world
with all of its advancements, both positive and negative. Our companies are
both attempting an approach at imagining what seeing a play in Shakespeare’s
time was like, and replicating that as much as possible in this era without
becoming a museum piece. We are very similar in a few areas:
DIRECT
AUDIENCE ADDRESS: The idea of “fourth-wall realism” in theatre is a relatively
new concept. For Shakespeare’s actors, there was no “fourth wall.” They
performed in open acknowledgement of the audience in the room. Both ASCs make
this concept a keystone of our performance aesthetics, with actors engaging the
audience as fellow scene partners, eliciting responses when needed, and drawing
them into the action of the play as participants rather than passive observers.
SETS: Both
ASCs eschew the contemporary set design, instead performing in spaces designed
to replicate the setting of Shakespeare’s playhouses; three doors on-stage, a
playable balcony, and some trapdoors to allow us entrance from below the stage.
GENDER:
While ASCATL doesn’t make it a huge practice to have actors play characters of
opposite genders, we certainly haven’t shied away from it, i.e. having a man
play the kitchen wench in The Comedy of
Errors, or having women fighting as male soldiers in any play that features
combat. ASCVA also makes extensive use of gender swapping on stage, a natural
result of casting no more than 15 actors in any given Shakespeare play….even if
that play has more than 40 or 50 parts.
The
differences in how we approach our production aesthetics are what truly fascinated
me:
LIGHTING:
Since both companies make extensive use of the audience, it stands to reason
that the audience needs to be visible! ASCATL uses modern stage lights in
conjunction with the instruments that illuminate the audience so that the
actors can still see the crowd. Night scenes will be darker, day scenes will be
brighter, and both the stage lights and the house lights will reflect that. The
lighting in ASCVA remains bright throughout the production, keeping the
performance space and the audience in the same light together for the entire
running time. Also, ASCVA doesn’t use theatrical lighting instruments, but
instead uses lots and LOTS of electric candles throughout the room, along the
walls and in beautiful wooden chandeliers hanging over the stage and the lower
portion of the audience.
MUSIC: ASCATL
approaches the music in Shakespeare’s plays with an Elizabethan ear. Much of
our music is composed by Bo Gaiason, who is gifted a creating melodies and
harmonies that make strong use of fiddle, recorder, guitar, and small
percussion instruments. The sound is a familiar one to anyone who has been to a
Renaissance Faire. We do this as a way of trying to reconnect with the sonic
reality of Elizabethan England. ASCVA creates a musical soundscape that is more
akin to the popular music of today. As a matter of fact, for thirty minutes
prior to a show’s advertised start time, the cast performs familiar
contemporary songs as the audience filters in to find their seats (I heard Todd
Rundgren and Taylor Swift during my visit). They also make use of any
instruments in which the players are gifted, including banjo, accordion, and a
full drum-kit backstage. For me, this created a fun, festival-like atmosphere
and a heightened sense of excitement for the show to come, which I imagine
would have been similar to the experiences of the groundlings in Shakespeare’s
time.
COSTUMES:
ASCATL costumes, for the most part, represent the time period in which the
plays are set; characters in the Roman plays tend to wear togas, the Greeks
wear tunics, etc. Doublets are also frequently seen on the Tavern stage since
that was the fashion for Elizabethans. The production of Antony and Cleopatra that I saw in Virginia featured actors wearing
Elizabethan garb adorned with hints of the Roman attire when necessary. This
keeps in line with what Shakespeare’s actors did. The quick turnaround to
produce a new play did not allow enough time to create a wealth of costuming
options that would most fully represent a particular time period, so Elizabethan
actors would traditionally wear the dress of their own time and embellish with
wraps, drapes, and accessories that reflected the time and place in which the
play was set. Audiences frequently saw combinations of Roman and Elizabethan
clothes on the playhouse stages.
Although
both of our companies intend the same goal of producing Shakespeare plays in a
manner that reflects what his audiences saw (and what he originally intended),
the interpretation of that goal and the method for producing a product to reach
that goal can be amazingly different. And both theories can be equally
effective and entertaining. I walked away from my field trip astounded at how
seemingly small aesthetic alterations such as lights and costumes can have a
massive impact on the “feel” of a performance, and still be just as familiar as
if I had worked with them for years. To be honest, almost a month later, I’m
still processing a lot of what I experienced in Virginia and its relationship
to what we do in Atlanta… and that’s a good thing.
Written by Andrew Houchins
Submitted by Amanda Lindsey McDonald in Education
