 |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
News
|
||
|
News |
Dateline: 21st September, 2005
Here's a press release which we just had to reproduce in its entirety! Volcano Theatre Company sometimes appears determined to piss people off. The company has just returned from the Edinburgh Fringe with the calculatedly offensive one-man show Hitting Funny, which (despite rave reviews) (we, however, thought it wasn't a very good play: BTG) has been known to lose half its audience to walk-outs, and which upset someone in Edinburgh so much that it became the victim of a campaign of sabotage. So when, with its usual irreverence, the company set about thoroughly dismantling Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, staff at the Volcano office calmly braced themselves for the usual volley of outrage and complaint… But they were in for a pleasant surprise. "Oh, people have complained, of course," shrugs the company’s Marketing Manager, "but only the sort of people who are determined to be upset by just about anything unusual you do with Shakespeare. On the whole we’re delighted with the open-minded attitude that audiences (and especially young people) are bringing to the show. In fact, one of our aims was that we would bring fresh excitement to a rather timeworn play, to free ourselves and hopefully our audiences from the stifling dust of cliché and predictability that has accumulated over Romeo and Juliet. Other productions have tried to tackle this, but we felt that they tended to fall into the same trap – for all their updated settings and sexy effects, they still hold sacred the love story between Romeo and Juliet and reproduce the plot almost uncritically." People will argue, of course, that if you dispense with most of the elements of the play that are usually considered essential, what you have left is not really Romeo and Juliet at all. "Let them," say Volcano defiantly, "they are right, in a way, but it has always been a dead-end argument anyway. We are not striving for Shakespearean authenticity – for those who are slow to grasp this fact we have even crossed out the title to help them." When it comes to "messing about" with the Bard, Volcano has form. The company’s 1999 version of Macbeth was a riotous two-hander that punctured the play’s pretensions to tragic heroism and related its relentless violence to the sordid crimes of Fred and Rose West. It found widespread critical acclaim and was received enthusiastically from Switzerland to Sri Lanka, but proved too much for enraged audiences in the Home Counties. Similarly, the 1992 show L.O.V.E. staged Shakespeare’s Sonnets as a contemporary menage à trois – passionate, sumptuous, and violent. When the show was revived in 2003 to tour the Caucasus, its ardent homosexual kisses provoked walkouts, angry protests and threats of sabotage from the Georgian Orthodox Church – however, the show went on to be something of a popular hit in (Muslim) Azerbaijan. Which just goes to show that the most obvious cultural assumptions do not always apply. So… what exactly is left in the Volcano Romeo and Juliet? Well, there may be no grand romance, but there is tenderness, lyricism and beauty – notably in an exquisitely choreographed balcony scene (minus balcony, naturally) and a haunting dream sequence. There are abundant laughs, and arguably the most memorable death scene you will ever see. There is cruelty, pain, violence, sex and death. All the essential poisonings, suicides and stabbings are included, and the time-frame of the original play is retained. And of course, there is the language – although the play has been ruthlessly downsized and radically rearranged, there is plenty of the original text left, in all its extraordinary and diverse poetry. The pared-down text serves to emphasise things that are often overlooked – in this version the strange and pivotal character of Friar Lawrence comes in for some serious scrutiny, and his interest in the young lovers is of a creepier kind than other versions would allow. "Obviously we want people to enjoy the show" insist the company, "and we hope that they’ll find it a surprising and refreshing transformation of this very familiar story. Plus it’s fast-paced, energetic and visually interesting. In place of the reassuring familiarity of more traditional versions, we’re offering surprise, excitement, a bit of risk… We’ve got a great film-maker, a great choreographer and a strong cast. We’re pleased to be opening at the Arcola Theatre – it’s one of London’s most exciting fringe venues, and so we can count on a broad-minded, adventurous audience. This is the show’s second time touring the UK, so we can’t have pissed off that many people yet. But don’t worry, we’ll bring Hitting Funny to London soon." The play is at the Arcola from 26th September 1st October at 6:45pm. It then tours to:
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
|
|
|
