Somewhat unexpected?
Well, I'm not entirely sure I'd have expected this extraordinary celebration of Shakespeare's birthday in Westminster Abbey: A brawl broke out in the nave of Westminster Abbey on Saturday night with rival gangs noisily attacking each other. It turned out they were Montagues and Capulets - and members of Intermission Youth Theatre who were launching an extraordinary celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday in a famously sacred space. They were joined by actors from Shakespeare’s Globe and for 75 minutes the audience roamed among the building’s tombs and chapels, suddenly lighting on, or even being accosted by, familiar scenes and characters. Directed by Claire van Kampen, this might be dubbed In Yer Face, Bard.
The abbey seemed the right place for such an event. It is soaked in history: at one point I heard Richard II’s barbed account of Bolingbroke’s exit from London being delivered alongside the king’s own portrait. But the abbey is packed with literary and theatrical associations, too. In Poet’s Corner I stood by plaques commemorating Henry Irving and Laurence Olivier while gazing at Peter Scheemakers’ statue of Shakespeare, who himself seemed to be looking on approvingly as two actors played the Oberon-Titania quarrel scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
As an audience, we were not mere listeners, however. Promenading, we were constantly involved in the action....
[O]ne of the most moving celebrations of Shakespeare I’ve experienced: one in which his characters were transformed from distant figures on a stage to recognisable people anxious to communicate their crises to passing spectators.
But, as Billington remarks, perhaps exactly the right place for such an event.
No, what boggled me was the major part played in these proceedings by a leading thespian who has proclaimed himself an Oxfordian, and therefore, presumably, does not believe the day in question to be the birthday of the person who actually wrote the plays? and that it thus must be a day in celebration of somebody that he believes to have been an oik from Stratford wrongfully acclaimed? A bit incongruous, what? On the other hand, chance to tear a cat in some juicy parts, we note: 'delivering the opening speech of Richard III in front of the pews and playing with a toy plane like some demonic child'; 'playing the scene from The Winter’s Tale where Leontes attacks Paulina for bringing him a baby he furiously disowns'. This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2916200.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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