Have you ever seen Shakespeare performed in a different language other than English? How do other countries interpret and portray Shakespeare?
Will the world ever tire of William Shakespeare?
He pops up in the most unlikely places.
I’m going for a walk with my son and dog in a park in Fontainebleau (50 minutes from Paris).
I spotted a poster for a Shakespeare festival taking place in a park in Avon. I had to go.
To start the festival, Twelfth Night was performed. This took me back to school and trying to understand Shakespeare’s way of expressing things. A big bonus was that the play was performed in English. The audience was a mix of young and old, splattering ex-pats, learned students, and French fans of Shakespeare. The stage had chairs laid out and costumes hung on clothes rails on a plain black background. It looked like it was going to be a play reading rather than a full-on play.
The actors came on stage at random moments. There was one who looked like a rock god—long hair, shirt open, revealing a naked torso. He was moving to a Radiohead loop in an overtly sexual manner. What were we all in for? The first line of the play, “If music be the food of love, play on…” puts it into context. It was a clever way to start the play. Some of the actors excelled in their parts. There was a mix of British and French actors. Towards the middle, an impromptu party seemed to erupt, with the actors inviting the audience to join them on stage. The play certainly created a euphoric ambience, and the theatregoers left feeling well entertained.
The next day we set off in our car, the sun shining, to see “A Comedy of Errors” (version française). I was unfamiliar with this play. The setting was nice—a large house in a park. A wedding party trooped down before the play began. A child crying, searching for his parents. a photographer snapping away. The prelude to a play is going on all around us.
Actors started appearing. a prisoner speaking in a forlorn voice. Left, right, and centre, there was an actor or a group of actors popping up. You could see the enthusiasm of the actors bubbling over. They committed to delivering this play; it was written in their faces, but maybe with too much gusto, subtlety and a bit of guile was lacking. Lines seemed to be shouted, and faces contorted. I was handicapped by not being able to understand what was being said. It all seemed very hysterical. Was it capturing the spirit of a Shakespeare play? I was left to wonder.
After the opening, I began to switch off; there were too many distractions—that wedding going on in the background, for example. Then the weather turned and the heavens opened up. It was like a scene I remember from The Witches of Eastwick, when a school orchestra is playing and then a massive storm erupts, rupturing the concert and causing mayhem. Some of the audience tried to bravely tough it out. The actors carried on unabated. Some of the audience went under trees, while others were better equipped with umbrellas.
You had to feel sorry for the actors, who appeared young and who’d religiously learned their lines—no easy feat. The play’s director stepped in to draw the curtain on the play. The audience was now thin, and the weather was grim with dark grey ominous clouds. If only they’d chosen to put on “The Tempest.” A Comedy of Errors had transformed into “A Not Very Funny Disaster.” Dripping wet, we trudged back to our car. Regardless, Shakespeare’s plays, in whatever form they take, are still alive.
Francis H Powell author 