A Midsummer Night's Tempest achieved!
I'm pleased to report that Watch City Players' Shakespeare in the park piece, A Midsummer Night's Tempest, went off well. We performed it yesterday just before the concert series that Waltham sponsored on the commons, and despite the myriad annoyances inherent in performing in an outside space with few formal audience rules, we sallied forth bravely with our performance. I was so proud of everyone involved. crearespero and dendron_ges cut together a very clever edit of Shakespeare's two fairy plays, The Tempest and Midsummer, and Frances shouldered the administrative and creative burdens of directing. What I liked best about our piece was that it had both a humor to it and a "cool" factor, complete with broad, illustrative action so that the story could be carried even if you didn't get the words. We were told to aim our piece at kids, so that was a real success, especially when some little cuties in the audience came up to us and eagerly asked us questions. That was really gratifying. And of course, I love this cast, which also included the lovely and lovely to work with actors katiescarlett29, iagotolycus, Charlotte, and Nick. I think we impressed the Waltham Arts Council, and brought a little Shakespeare to people who might not have been otherwise familiar.
I would someday like to do full versions of the two plays that incorporate some of elements we developed here. I loved Frances's interpretation of Ariel as a spirit of chaos and even of frolic, but with a lurking danger beneath-- that it may have had something to do with the death of Sycorax, and its rapport with Prospero came from some combination of a true respectful connection and enough raw power to keep it under control. Frances and nennivian sang much of the poetry to original music that Frances composed herself, and the dance and movement that they did to accompany it captured that way dance has of giving an extra layer of meaning to the poetry of the speech. I aspire to choreography like that. And finally, I really dug the version of Puck I did here. We called him "Bro Puck," as he was all heart and guts and loins with no brain, a distinctly masculine presence, a kind of chaos that rolled around like a happy dumb wrecking ball without a drop of malice behind it. It made for some really funny stage business for me to do, and I would love to play this version of the character in the full play sometime.
I would someday like to do full versions of the two plays that incorporate some of elements we developed here. I loved Frances's interpretation of Ariel as a spirit of chaos and even of frolic, but with a lurking danger beneath-- that it may have had something to do with the death of Sycorax, and its rapport with Prospero came from some combination of a true respectful connection and enough raw power to keep it under control. Frances and nennivian sang much of the poetry to original music that Frances composed herself, and the dance and movement that they did to accompany it captured that way dance has of giving an extra layer of meaning to the poetry of the speech. I aspire to choreography like that. And finally, I really dug the version of Puck I did here. We called him "Bro Puck," as he was all heart and guts and loins with no brain, a distinctly masculine presence, a kind of chaos that rolled around like a happy dumb wrecking ball without a drop of malice behind it. It made for some really funny stage business for me to do, and I would love to play this version of the character in the full play sometime.