By Robert Bethune
PREVIEW:
Royal Shakespeare Company 2006
A Festival of Shakespeare's Classics
Ann Arbor is the only city in America to play host to "Antony & Cleopatra," "Julius Caesar" and "The Tempest" during the RSC's year-long Complete Works Festival.
The plays will be staged in repertory Oct. 24-Nov. 12 at Power Center, 121 Fletcher Street, Ann Arbor. Tickets: $30-$150.
For tickets or information call the University Musical Society at 734-764-2538 or log on to http://www.ums.org.
Acclaimed troupe's visit to Ann Arbor includes events for all five senses
ANN ARBOR – In the musical "A Little Night Music" by Stephen Sondheim, Desiree Armfeldt lets us know about the glorious, glamorous life of the touring theater company: "Which town is this one, la, la, la? Hi ho the glamorous life!" A normal touring theater production really is like that. As Paul Simon says, "And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories … ."
The Royal Shakespeare Company's upcoming tour to Ann Arbor is completely different. It's not just bringing three plays by William of Avon to a Midwestern college town. As Deborah Shaw, the director of the RSC's Complete Works Festival put it, "Having opportunities to sit down for three weeks and engage with faculty, students, our technical team, artists, directors, and actors – it really puts heart into the touring."
The members of the company, aren't just going on the road doing Shakespeare. They will be interacting with all sorts of people throughout the Ann Arbor area – teachers, artists, audience members, students, people of all sorts. For those of us here in Michigan, it's not going to be just sitting at a play: There will be a broad range of activities that appeal not just to the mind, but to all five senses as well.
The production actually began back in September when Ralph Williams of the University of Michigan started his four-part class on the three plays the RSC will present during its 20-day residency: "Antony & Cleopatra," "Julius Caesar" and "The Tempest." Later that same month, faculty from the U-M, Oakland University, Wayne State University and Washtenaw Community College got together with the public for round-table discussions of the three plays. This month, there are more roundtables and a three-part class by Tom Zimmerman at Washtenaw Community College.
Lectures and talks continue in October as more and more people add their voices to the conversation. The talk won't be just about the plays. There will be a team effort from the U-M classics department on the worlds of ancient Egypt and Rome to go with "Antony & Cleopatra" and "Julius Caesar." There will be interviews with key RSC people, including Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter, covering all aspects of acting, design and production. There will be a special session on Cleopatra herself, as dramatic character, woman of royal stature and enduring myth.
The Shakespearean Sonnet Slam invites local performers and artists "to create an original interpretation of Sonnets 2, 4, 5, 10 or 11. This means turning the sonnet into a dance piece, a slam performance, an instrumental performance, a theatrical piece, etc. If you can think it, do it!"
There will be one session about what happens out front in the theater: "Watching Ourselves Watching Shakespeare." The sheer reflexivity of it boggles the mind.
And it won't all be about words. Michael Neal from the University of Auckland–yes, mate, Down Under–will clue us in about sound in Shakespeare, working out the "soundtrack" of the sounds and fury Shakespeare put into "The Tempest." I'm fascinated. Years ago I was a one-man orchestra doing live underscoring for a production of "The Tempest," and the more I worked with the play, the more sounds there were to play with.
Let's not forget the eyes. There will be an exhibition of RSC stage design in the Power Center lobby, another of RSC costumes at the Ann Arbor Public Library, and Hatcher Library will have historic photos of past productions. There will a gallery crawl to take people through all three.
On a purely informal note, RSC company members and interested audience members will gather at the Arbor Brewing Company after each performance for chat and refreshments.
The educational side of the residency will be very active. Actors from local theaters are going into middle and high schools to prepare them for what they'll see; RSC actors will visit high schools and university classes in design, acting and directing; various groups will have voice work from RSC coaches.
And let's not forget the taste buds. Morgan and York, the fine food specialists of Ann Arbor, will present a cheese and ale tasting celebrating autumn and the RSC.
You can feed all five senses and your mind. A few events cost money; many are free.
Details are on the University Musical Society Web site at http://www.ums.org. A PDF brochure that gives all the dates, times, places and costs can be found at http://www.ums.org/homePageDocs/RSC_brochure_September.pdf.
