Summer is here, time to catch some Shakespeare

The sun is shining for the most part, and that must mean the thespians are out and about ready to put together the various productions of Bard on the Beach, Shakespeare in the Park, Willy in the Parking Lot or Bill under the stars. Okay, those last two I made up, and you might not want to go if someone invites you to them until you’ve checked that they are in fact productions of William Shakespeare, playwright (maybe?), actor and producer.

Here are a few that the Brawlers have either attended in the past, or ones we think you might like.

Bard on the Beach, Vancouver BC

Bard on the Beach is one of my favourites of them all. It’s the first festival I made a point of going to when I lived in Vancouver, and it’s one I’ve seen about 20 or so plays at. The crews out at Vanier Park always do a very good job with their productions and rarely have I left thinking it a bad idea I caught the play.

This year, they’ve got Western-style Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well in India, and dang if they aren’t doing a Bard Brawl favourite and putting on a gender-bending version of Coriolanus. Dang. Of all the years I’m not going back west.

BOB is also putting on one of the Bard Brawl’s favourite Shakespeare-themed movies in theatre form in Shakespeare in Love, so double dang that I won’t be out west this year.

Look forward to Bard Brawl reviews of as many of these fine plays as we can get a reviewer to the beach for.

Repercussion Theatre, Montreal

Amanda Kellock is directing this year’s set of free Shakespeare in the Park productions of Measure for Measure this year, and the Bard Brawlers will for sure be in on this one.

Repercussion did a great job with gender-bending R&J last year pushing the quality of the play to feature a lesbian love affair between the titular characters, which worked perfectly and was thoroughly enjoyed, and I’m excited they picked M4M to do this year. It’s a great play, and I get all nerd pumped whenever a company does a less well-known play.

Plays start July 11, so find a park near you and go go go.

Canadian Stage, Shakespeare in High Park, Toronto

If Raptors fans ever come down from their collective high and decide they want to do something with their summer aside from sitting in Jurassic Park crying with joy, check out a couple of gems from the Shakespeare in High Park festival.

Like Montreal, TO, the Six, Drakeville or whatever you’re calling it these days, is putting on M4M and also doing one of the top comedies in the cannon: Much Ado About Nothing.

Plays start July 4

Shakespeare in the Ruff, Withrow Park, Toronto

This could be fun. Shakespeare in the Ruff is putting on a Winter’s Tale this year, which is a pretty awesome play, but also a very tricky one to pull off.

There’s a bear, there are sheep and there’s a pretty epic ending on this one, so you might want to bring a picnic and check it out.

Plays start August 14.

Public Theatre, Shakespeare in Central Park, NYC

Dang again. Public Theatre is putting on, yep, Coriolanus. This I may need to make a special trip down to Manhattan to check out.

That starts in July, and Much Ado About Nothing is entering its final week.

Central Park is a pretty awesome place to check out the bard, and this bard brawler loved the version of Cymbeline they put on a few years ago.

You can get tickets via lottery for these or book well in advance. It’s worth it either way.

Shakespeare Kelowna, Kelowna, BC

And just to ensure that one play is being put on in the completely wrong time of year, Shakespeare Kelowna decided to stage the Christmas production Twelfth Night this summer.

The idea that this play is a Christmas play has lost all relevance, so the purists can just settle down at this point.

Jokes aside, this can be one of the funniest plays of them all if done right, and will be a delight for those people in the Okanagan up for a night at the Spearhead Winery.

Locale on this one can’t be beat, so get a ticket and check it out.

Productions start July 17.

If there are any other Shakespeare productions you feel the brawlers would enjoy, send us an email or message us on Facebook anytime.

Enjoy the sun, enjoy the Shakespeare.

Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sonnet 18

June 16, 2019 0

Gender bending R&J blends beauty and bravery

Joint female leads is a perfect way to give one of Shakespeare’s most overproduced plays the spark it needs, and a relevant contemporary touch. (Courtesy Studio Baron Photo, Repercussion Theatre)

Daniel J. Rowe

The questions I’ve been asking myself since seeing Repercussion Theatre‘s Romeo & Juliet: Love is Love are these:

What do I, as a snobby Shakespearophile want to see in a production?

What do I hope others see?

What is the best way to produce something the masses will come out to?

How many jokes are too many jokes? (It’s always fewer than you think…)

The Bard Brawlers have said more than once we feel R&J is a play produced far too often, that many productions miss key points in the play, and that there are better plays dealing with love in the cannon.

Top marks for set and costume design at Repercussion Theatre’s latest Shakespeare in the Park gift for the summer. (Daniel J. Rowe, The Bard Brawl)

That aside, Amanda Kellock‘s innovation, artistic direction, and interpretation of the play makes the current production well world a look.

“In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman,”

– Romeo; I,i

First, and most poignantly, Romeo (Shauna Thompson) and Juliet (Michelle Rambharose) are both female.

Thus, the early line, “In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman,” takes on a whole different meaning, importance and, in this production, power. Thompson’s delivery off it actually gave me some shivers.

Everything about this play depends on the leads, and Thompson and Rambharose are both excellent. In past productions and films I’ve caught, Mercutio and Tybalt can steal the show, but in this production they certainly do not (more on that later). The two women are tender and scared and erratic with their affection, which is the key to Romeo and Juliet.

The two lovers are very young, very excitable, very immature and very erratic.

Remember, SPOILER ALERT, Romeo kills two people in the play, falls in and out of love with one, while in love with another, and kills herself rather than waiting a damn second to think about what she’s doing. Geez. Chill.

Thompson gets there. Her range is on display throughout and she traverses the inconstant Romeo’s emotions with tact and care.

In addition to the leads, Capulet (Mr. and Ms.) are gender swapped, as is Benvolio.

Capulet (Nadia Verrucci) is the scene stealer if there is one. When onstage, she is a presence to be reckoned with and her ability to go from funny to down right frightening is effective to be sure. When she reams out Tybalt (Patrick Jeffrey), you get that cringy, watching-someone’s-mom-ream-their-kid-out-in-public-feeling that shows who has power, and why the landscape has degraded to the point it’s at: IE, the streets are a battleground between two gangster families.

So we come to the point where a critic must be a critic. Romeo and Juliet’s Verona is a dangerous, dirty place where two groups of people have been street brawling (bing) for some time. Benvolio, Romeo, Tybalt, Mercutio and that rest have been duking it out on the streets for so long that the prince declares a death sentence if it happens again.

“To wield old partisans in hands as old,

Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.

If ever you disturb our streets again,

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

For this time, all the rest depart away,”

– Prince, I, i

In Repercussion’s production, Tybalt and Mercutio (Adam Capriolo) never seem that fierce. Mercutio in particular goes for far too many laughs. His character is, no doubt, funny and lusty, but he’s also got some venom in him that it’s hard to see in this production. He did get a lot of laughs at the production I was at, but could have had some gasps and shivers too, which is a shame. One less joke and perhaps one more bee sting were in order.

Oh, and on the topic of laughs, audiences need to stop waiting to laugh and laughing at things that aren’t funny! Ugh, using fabric as blood is not funny! It’s tragic if you let it be, and allow some discomfort. (Rant over)

Two last things: the set and costumes are perfect for this play. Sophie el Assaad’s colour and style palette is sharp and perfect for the production, and the set is slick without being over-designed. Top marks.

The play runs to August 8 in and around Montreal, and is donation-based. Check it out. Bring a blanket or chair and something in case it gets cold (it did on Friday for sure).

Oh, and wear this jacket if you have it because it rules:

This girl knows what to wear to a gender bending production of R&J. That’s for damn sure. (Daniel J. Rowe, The Bard Brawl)

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July 8, 2018 0

Repercussion Theatre’s Julius Caesar, Directed by Amanda Kelloc

On Tuesday August 2nd, Brawlers Daniel J. Rowe, “Mr.” Nicholas MacMahon and Eric Jean convened on the beautifully manicured grounds of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal to assist to Repercussion Theatre’s 2016 edition of Shakespeare in the Park. Which overplayed comedy or star-crossed tragedy was waiting for us?

Oh, snap! Julius f’n Caesar! Yes! A Bard Brawl co-captain favourite!

We were really psyched about that. And Nick was excited that he’d finally get to see the last two acts of the play after walking out of the last production he saw to protest the death of Caesar. Indeed Nick,

[Caesar] hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures,
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

Unkind cut doesn’t begin to describe it.

As tradition dictates, we arrived just early enough to lay out the blanket and then have assholes set up with chairs in front of us. Then, resigned to not being able to see the very bottom of the stage for the next few hours, I reach for a cold beer to to slake our thirst only to have a petty caesar stop us with an injunction: “No beer here!”

What?!? Shakespeare in the Park, Bard Brawlers, pretzels, but no beer? Well, there was nothing for it. We had our programmes, we’d stretched out blanket, the play was about to begin.

It had to be endured. But be warned: no picnic beers at the CCA.

The setting for this Julius Caesar is a sort of post-apocalyptic pseudo Rome. The set for the first three acts of the play features columns of corroded metal and what looks like a rusted fountain. Peeling posters of Caesar are pasted to the columns and walls. Across the top of the set is a platform with drums and various percussion instruments which would be manned throughout the play by percussionist and composer, Catherine Varvaro.

Deena Aziz delivers an energetic and powerful Marcus Brutus, though her performance is sometimes undermined by a tendency to race through her lines a little too quickly. Photo – Daniel J. Rowe

Scaffolding and ladders also made it easy for the actresses to ascend, descend or perch in-between the two levels. The space was used to great effect, particularly in the scenes where Brutus and Marc Antony address the people of Rome, and the set itself evoked the public spaces of Rome and the Capitol nicely.

The near-constant percussion score really helped animate the play, particularly in the final two action-heavy acts of the play. However, there were times where the music itself was too loud and it became difficult to hear the lines being spoken by the actresses. In the last two acts of the play in particular, the music really set the frantic pace of the action, despite the lengthy slow-motion Capoeira-esque stage fighting which did not add much to the drama.

Kellock also chose to open and close with a song which I feel did not particularly work well with this play. For the last scene in particular, the addition of a song at the end of the play took all of the power away from Mark Antony’s final speech in which he identifies Brutus as the only conspirator who did not kill Caesar out of jealousy but because he believed in the principles of the Roman Republic. It’s a central concern of the play – the conspirators’ reason for killing Caesar are should seem suspect – and moving to a song to close deflates what is a powerful moment in the play.

Repercussion Theatre’s production of Julius Caesar features an all-female cast. To be clear, the characters themselves are not re-gendered (Julius Caesar didn’t become Juliet Caesar, for instance) but rather the roles are played by female actresses. While this may seem to indicate that the artistic director had a specific point to make about the relationship between power and gender in the play, it seems that there was no such vision guiding this choice. The programme just describes it as “an idea whose time has come,” something one should have the freedom to do in order to spark conversation.

For the most part, I didn’t find that an all-female cast changed much of anything to the play, possibly because much of the play involves fights and discussions between characters of the same gender. The casting choice becomes much more interesting when the scene features characters of different genders played by actresses of the same gender.

The scene where Portia asks Brutus to confide in her is perhaps the best examples. Portia’s speech is full of references to her gender and expresses a strong desire to be thought of possessing masculine qualities. When delivered to a female Brutus the speech seems much more poignant and underscores the relationship of gender to power in the play.

This year again, Repercussion Theatre’s production was hindered by unevenness in the acting.

For the most part, the leads of the play were quite good. Deena Aziz delivers an energetic and powerful Marcus Brutus, though her performance is sometimes undermined by a tendency to race through her lines a little too quickly.

Gitanjali Jain was also excellent in the role of Marc Antony, a role made thankless by Marlon Brando’s iconic performance of the role in Mankiewicz’ 1953 production of Julius Caesar. Jain’s Marc Antony’s vengeance seems somewhat more calculated and less impassioned than Brando’s but still well acted.

The titular role of Julius Caesar was ably acted by Leni Parker, who continued to range around the set of the play either as a ghost, or as one of Saruman’s Uruk-Hai. Your pick. (She had a white hand painted on her face,)

A nice way to tie back to Marc Antony’s curse, spoken over Caesar’s corpse. You know, this one:

The performances of the supporting actresses varied greatly. While many were excellent – such as Holly Gauthier-Frankel‘s Portia, or Warona Steshwaelo‘s Casca – others felt forced and over-acted and really detracted from the performance.

In the end, this year’s production of Julius Caesar feels like a better and more interesting effort than last year’s Twelfth Night though it does suffer from some of the same problems. A lack of focus in the direction of the play seems to be one, though Julius Caesar itself can feel like two plays in one, making it hard to bridge the two halves in a way that makes them feel connected.

Still, I am extremely encouraged be the choice of plays which Repercussion Theatre has chosen to tackle in the past few years and look forward to finding out what they have planned for next year!

(It’s too late to check out the production, but you can scope out some pictures and meet the ladies here!)

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August 8, 2016 0

Repercussion Theatre’s Twelfth Night, Directed by Amanda Kelloc

Eric Jean

Sitting in Westmount park (with copies of Twelfth Night in-hand to follow along, of course), Brawlers Celeste Lee and Daniel J.Rowe wondered aloud if Repercussion Theatre’s new director Amanda Kelloc knew what she was doing when she chose to present Bard Brawl – Twelfth Night, Act I to V, a Christmas play (!), in the middle of Montreal heat wave.

Did she even know it was a Christmas play? Yeah, I’m sure she knows. She seems like a smart woman and she didn’t edit out Sir Toby Belch’s song in II.3. which starts, “[Sings] ‘O, the twelfth day of December.” She knows what she’s doing, and I think she’s pretty clever, too.

So how the hell does a Christmas play work for Midsummer weather?

Well, Twelfth Night is actually the name of a Christian holiday which corresponds to the 12 days following Christmas, ending on January 6th with the Feast of the Epiphany. And how do you celebrate Twelfth Night? You drink and eat a lot, make fun of your betters, and generally the social order gets turned upside down while everybody cuts loose. Like many Christian traditions that the Church would like to claim were wholly original, this one’s actually Roman.

Yep. The Romans had this thing called Saturnalia, which took place over several days in – you guessed it! – December! They even elected this King of the Saturnalia who could order people to make out with their boss, or to pirouette in Buckingham palace, or whatever.

It’s a good gig if you can get it.

(Little sidebar: Sir Toby’s song makes sense. Seems that there was a time when Twelfth Night started 13 days before Christmas and then ended on Christmas. Trust me.)

See how it makes sense now? It’s entirely in keeping with the spirit of misrule in Twelfth Night to turn Twelfth Night from a Christmas play into a Midsummer play.

And in that same spirit, we decided to stash our monogrammed copies of the Complete Works into our bags and just watch the show.

Now that this bit of business is done, what did I actually think of the play?

In contrast to last summer’s wild, over-the-top, gut-splitting history play mash-up Harry the King, Kelloc’s Twelfth Night is a much more traditional staging of Twelfth Night.

The whole play takes place on the same simple set representing Olivia’s garden where Sir Toby Belch, Andrew Aguecheek and Maria spy on Malvolio as he reads the letter he thinks is from Olivia and which will lead him to prance around on-stage wearing ridiculous cross-gartered yellow stockings.

And thank God. I’ve seen to many plays with spinning box sets that seems less about the drama and more like a platform for some set designer to show off just how many locations they can cram into a two hour play. Especially given the outdoor venue, I really appreciated that the set itself depicted an outdoor locale

The only set alteration – which not only makes a lot of sense but also recalls the trap door ‘pit’ built into Elizabethan playhouses – is a kind of barred dungeon window behind which Malvolio stands while everyone thinks he’s gone nuts.

A nice touch.

Performances were generally good, though those of the miscreant Belch and company by far eclipsed those of the play’s courtly characters like Orsino and Viola. In defence of Orsino and co., however, Shakespeare didn’t always give them a whole lot to work with in Twelfth Night.

The stand-out performances to me were Sir Toby Belch (Matthew Kabwe) and Malvolio (Paul Rainville).

Kabwe’s physicality and boundless energy really brought the character of Twelfth Night’s de facto Lord of Misrule to life. (Almost as good as our own Jay Reid, but I digress.)

The synergy between Belch and Aguecheek (Adam Capriolo) was excellent, as was the decision to represent Andrew Aguecheek as a kind of effeminate hipster poseur. Letitia Brooke‘s initially reluctant Maria fit right in with the two other pranksters.

Rainville’s Malvolio was equally memorable for his stern, quasi-Puritanical high-mindedness as well as his cocksure yellow-stocking prancing. As much as you wanted to hate Malvolio for being a killjoy, you really felt bad for him by the end of the play.

Viola (Emelia Hellman) as well was well-acted and well cast, though I felt that she did not stand out as much as Malvolio and Belch.

The character of Feste (Gitanjali Jain)was portrayed as a jack-of-all-trades entertainer: singer, musician, and acrobat. Jain accompanied herself on the guitar as she sang Feste’s many songs. While she sang and played well, and the live, acoustic musical performance lent an air of spontaneity to Feste’s fooling, I felt at times that the songs were just a little too long. Rather than feed the ribald energy of the scene, they sometimes took away from it.

To me, Olivia (Rachel Mutombo) seemed the weakest of the cast members. Olivia is a melancholy character, still in mourning over the death of her brother. However, none of this melancholy came through in her performance which was rather one-note.

Orsino (Mike Payette) delivered an honest performances though it was not particularly noteworthy. Jesse Nerenberg and Darragh Kilkenny-Mondoux, as Sebastian and Antonio, respectively, both did well in their supporting roles.

On the whole, Repercussion’s 2015 edition of Shakespeare in the Park is an enjoyable if relatively conservative staging of Twelfth Night. While not without its flaws, it nevertheless makes for an entertaining evening in the park. I recommend grabbing a blanket, a few drinks, and catching Twelfth Night while you have the chance.

Twelfth Night runs until July 26th. Click here to see locations and show times.

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July 20, 2015 2

Repercussion Theatre’s Harry the King, Directed by Paul Hopkins

Repercussion Theatre's Harry the King coming to a park near you until August 3rd! — Repercussion Theatre’s Harry the King coming to a park near you until August 3rd!

Eric Jean

In case you didn’t know it yet, Repercussion Theatre is proving that Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V are damned funny.

Like bust-your-gut, pop-a-button, get-dirty-looks-on-the-Metro-because-you’re-laughing-so-damn-hard funny. And, as my wife Rachelle “The Butcherette” can testify, that’s if you don’t understand a word of Shakespeare besides ‘Zounds!

I know you’ve just verified our chronology of Shakespeare’s plays on bardbrawl.com and were getting ready to write an angry email about how we obvious morons have left out one of Shakespeare’s great, immortal and immutable work: Harry the King

“Peace!”, says this moron!

See, here’s the deal with this summer’s edition of Shakespeare in the Park: Harry the King is actually a play adapted from Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V. Specifically, it grabs up a bunch of the bits involving prince Harry’s rise from being a good-for-nothing lay-about who spends all of his time in Eastcheap’s taverns drinking with his buddies to his ascension of the throne and eventual conquest of France.

At least that’s what it looks like at first but the whole thing never actually makes it out of the tavern.

The entire play takes place inside the tavern with Hal, Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, and company playing out all of the roles in Hal’s story. As such, you’ll see actors doubling up on roles in the same scene, frivolous funny voices and accents, whimsical posturing and funny walks, criticism and praise of the actors performances and of course off-the-cuff comments about what’s happening to the audience who is a stand-in for the other tavern patrons.

So really, the whole thing is like an epic and uproarious Bard Brawl on stage if the Bard Brawl had a budget, some sound and lighting equipment, a stage and a live audience!

On an unrelated note, we still have a donate button and plenty of copies of ‘Zounds! for sale.

If you’re a purist who likes their Shakespearean histories untouched, their iambic speechifying solemn and formal, and their Salic law needlessly obscured and overly complicated to all except for those 2 guys in the front row who have been involved in 15th century Renaissance re-enactment for 20 years, maybe this won’t be the production for you.

But if you’re a person with a pulse and at least a few friends, particularly if you are a person subscribed to the Bard Brawl, there’s a good chance you’ll be thinking to yourself as you fold up your lawn chair or picnic blanket: “Well that was well worth the price of admission.”

Shakespeare in the Park is free so that was a free joke. (You’re welcome.)

But don’t be like that guy who refuses to tip: Repercussion Theatre lives on donations so when the actor who just made you pee your pants at the end of the first half of the play comes by with a hat during the intermission, hide your shame and drop a few bucks in please. (Or you can click here and donate.)

Pack up your cooler with a few snacks and a couple of drinks, bring a blanket and go see Repercussion Theatre’s Harry the King in a park near you before it’s too late! I won’t come to your house and force you to go see this (because I don’t know where you live, mostly), but I’ll just leave this last remark here for you to do with as you please.

This is the one play that made my wife say, for the first time ever since I have known her: “I want to go back and see it again!”

The Harry the King tour ends on August 3rd. You can check out Repercussion Theatre’s website for dates and locations of upcoming performances.

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July 28, 2014 1