All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. |
Mopa Theatre Company
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
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Sky Blue Theatre is looking forward to producing a successful Shakespeare production in conjunction with Hong Kong Performing Arts School in the near future. Check back soon for more details!
Sky Blue Theatre also works to bring top quality accessible productions of Shakespeare’s plays to theatres nationwide. To achieve this Sky Blue directors continue to develop a close working relationship with MOPA Theatre Company and in particular Nic Brownlie, the celebrated authority on Shakespeare’s plays. |
Nic Brownlie believes……
Shakespeare's tale of tricks and lies is a tale of tricks and lies because tricks and lies make good theatre.
The things that tricks and lies bring about as an outcome (the inverse of tricks and lies = happy couples happily married) is exciting because it is unexpected and makes happy theatre.
Putting good theatre with happy theatre makes great comedy because it allows devices that provoke laughter to exist alongside devices that surprise and engage our expectations.
To then throw in some truly surprising moments of great drama (reminding us of what this story OUGHT to be about if it was real life) is to explode the mix into something of genius.
The effect of a play like ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is achieved because all those things that SHOULD be serious and long-lasting in their effect in real life, are wilfully manipulated into unexpected and seemingly impossible scenarios on the stage.
It is not the reflection of life, but the manipulation of disparate parts of life into a new reality - the reality of the theatre.
Just as Pantomime tells impossible stories yet makes them cohere through the reality of theatre, so Shakespeare tells impossible stories yet makes them cohere through the reality of theatre.
Because his source material is a combination of a) Theatrical trickery and b) Real life events, it is easy to get caught up in the significance of the real life events and start analysing them as if the whole thing is real life. However, to do this ignores the theatrical trickery. And the reality of Shakespeare's plays is not one thing or the other - it is the interaction between theatrical trickery AND real life events.
Taking the "possible" from real life and putting it into a structure that is entirely "theatrical", produces something that is completely removed from real life. It produces a game in which fitting square pegs into round holes IS THE WHOLE POINT. To make those pegs appear to fit perfectly is the illusion of theatre.
Fawlty Towers is the absolute example of this - at its best - post-Shakespeare. |
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