 |
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
News
|
|||
|
News
|
Dateline: 29th September, 2006
Carboard Citizens and Propeller at Stratford As part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival, Cardboard Citizens, the UK's only homelss people's professional theatre company, presents a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, the story of a man who has money and friends, loses his money and his friends, and then his mind.
Director Adrian Jackson is setting the production within the context of a management training event, and it will be staged in the non-theatrical, conference venue-like setting of Stratford’s Shakespeare Centre – a venue best known for holding RSC archives and as a place of study.
Adrian Jackson said of his choice of venue and interpretation: “There is a positive industry of Shakespeare and management / motivational training: the lessons of Henry V and others applied to personal development and ‘authentic leadership’. With our tongue not a million miles from our cheek, our production will take the form of a group of motivational speakers using Timon as a training text. The audience will be received as participants to a training event or conference and thus implicated in the production (without coercion).”
This new production, adapted by Kenilworth based writer Sarah Woods and Adrian Jackson, uses a pared-down version of Shakespeare’s text married with contemporary testimony. Most of the company has had some experience of homelessness or refugeedom or both, and many have performed with Cardboard Citizens before. The production runs at the Shakespeare centre from 24th to 28th October and then goes on to the Belfast Festival (31st October – 3rd November), and the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (7th - 11th November). Then in November Propeller bring their all male Taming of the Shrew to the Coutyard Theatre for twelve performances only from 2nd to 11th November. Commenting on accusations of sexism made against the play, director Edward Hall said, “I don’t think it’s a sexist play at all. It is a very sophisticated comedy which is an ironic comment on how men treat women in marriage. It is up to us to decide what we think the rights and wrongs of his story is, and that’s why the play is argued about so ferociously, because it is particularly brilliant in that it deals with the one issue that everyone has first hand experience of – and that is relationships.” Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
||
|
|
