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by
大象传媒 South Yorkshire contributor Ali Davies |
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As
a nation we're terribly good at observing the unspoken rules of
institutions.
We are hushed in libraries, we don't run at swimming pools and in
the theatre we sit quietly, laugh when everyone else does and give
the obligatory clap at the correct time.
Imagine
breaking that constraint. You
are lying in the open air, quaffing wine, munching food, laughing
willy-nilly聟 you're at the theatre?
Open
air theatre is not as rigid as regular theatre. You are completely
relaxed and consequently have more freedom to enjoy - you don't
even have to get up for a drink!
Heartbreak
Productions are a professional theatre company with a versatile
cast of seven actors, doubling / tripling up on numerous parts.
They
find themselves competing with rustling trees, cooing birds, popping
corks, swooping bats, scurrying squirrels, dancing moths and planes
overhead.
This
year they are performing Macbeth, a play of murder, scheming, greed
and foul play.
Last Friday, when the heavens opened and the elements took over,
I couldn't help thinking, what better setting could you have for
a
Shakespearean tragedy?
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| Macbeth
and the witches |
Ironically
the director, Peter Mimmack, said the weather was one of the things
he struggled with - "how could I do Shakespeare's darkest piece
justice whilst
performing it outside on a glorious English Summer聮s day?"
The answer is simple, perform it on a stormy day.
The
actors bellow and shout their lines, booming them out to be heard
over the sound of rain pelting against umbrellas and cagoules.
The
audience sit stunned by both the weather and the passionate performances,
everyone seems to have been transported to a bleak Scottish heath.
The performance is both psychological and dynamic, but it is the
added extra of a storm, which gives this play its power.
Notable
performances came from Clifford Barry as Macbeth and Andy Cresswell
as Macduff.
At points when the rain was so loud that the actors can hardly be
heard - lines like "so foul and fair a day I have not seen",
are delivered with wonderful sarcasm, having the drenched but thirsty
for more audience laughing in the aisles, well bushes.
So
if you like eating picnics (well soggy crisps), watching actors
battling with the elements and potentially get upstaged by bats
and squirrels, come and be entertained by some Open Air Theatre.
Rain or shine, you wont be disappointed.
-
Ali Davies
Macbeth
shows on the 19 and 20 June 2004 at Sheffield Botanical Gardens
- call 0114 249 6000 for more information.
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