Once Upon a Shakespearean Tale at GreenStages’s Outdoor Theater Festival
On Sunday I sat on the lawn by the Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park to watch the Shakespeare Northwest company’s Once Upon a Shakespearean Tale, written and Directed by Carolyn Travis-Hatch. This show is part of GreenStage’s 2019 Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival. This string of five stories in the style of William Shakespeare, wonders how Billy might have written fairy tales.
The theater tradition of “the show must go on” and the company’s tagline: “Outdoors and under the stars, the way it was meant to be”—served them well. Audience and cast had to contend with the roar of jetliners overhead (Volunteer Park is in SeaTac airport’s flightpath). After about an hour of the 90-minute show, they faced a louder noise problem: the birthday celebration at the neighboring picnic area had hired a marching honk band. Alas, honk bands are loud and as outdoor theater on a budget lacks amplification the troupe had to ramp up their own vocal volume. Dealing with this challenge brought out some clever improv lines and stage action, all in character, to boot. Good job dealing with contingencies.
A minor tragedy of this situation was many of the lines of dialogue were hard to hear. After all, the delight of a parody of Shakespeare is the parody of Shakespeare’s language.
No sets and minimal props and basic but evocative costumes make this is a production designed for the road. Mr. Wm. Shakespeare (John Robertson) served as the Master of Ceremonies and welcomed the audience. He introduced each story—which from the start proved a challenge as Ophelia (Lydia Randall) might distractedly walk past. By the closing story, Ophelia insisted that her “favorite” be told.
The script minimizes the lines to be memorized. In the evening’s five stories, two were read tales right out of the script binder. The action was conducted by the players with hand puppets.
The lead-off story was The Glass Slipper, better known as Cinderella. At one point, the show got an audience member with ambitions of being “an actor” to read one of the lines—an example of how the tales toyed with theater conventions. Mostly to good effect. Juliet (Jessie Spangler), for example, barges in while the Prince and Cinderella are gazing at each other at the ball insisting that that is “her scene.”
One funny play on language happened after Cinderella arrives at the Prince’s ball. Guests comment on her beauty and charm, and Shakespeare calls out “She’s a hot tomato!” The cast stops cold: “Hot tomato? That’s the best you can come up with?” Shakespeare: “I was never good at improvising.” Cast: “No wonder you’re better known as a playwright than an actor.”
One of the cast read next tale, As you Like It, out of the script binder while hand puppets and pantomime carried the action.
The third story, Singing Bones involved a brother killing his sibling and pretending to have defeated a vicious bear that his slain brother had actually killed. He killed his brother under a bridge and buried him there. This story showed the problems and inventiveness of actors when props are not in place. Time to improvise till they can get back on track in the script. Experienced actors have memorized meaningless Shakespeare sounding lines to have ready if something like this happens.
The next was another tale, Measure for Measure involving rabbit hand puppets who try to nab a forbidden apple only to be caught and sentenced to death. I think it worked out.
The Little Mermaid closed the show. This came after the “pestering” of Ophelia. As she sat reading from the script book, the marching honk band fired up. The band played loudly through the whole 20 minutes of this story. The cast played on despite this challenge. I couldn’t hear about half of the dialogue. Perhaps I may get a second chance at a future Shakespeare in the Park.
The remainder of Shakespeare Northwest’s summer festival of plays will be at their home base—Skagit County’s Rexville Blackrock Amphitheatre in Mount Vernon. Featured plays this year are Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Last performance is August 17.
Once Upon a Shakespearean Tale. Written and Directed by Carolyn Travis-Hatch. Shakespeare Northwest. Runtime 90 minutes, no intermission. Next performance: 4 pm July 27 as part of a 3-play “Iron Man” day of shows, Rexville Blackrock Amphitheatre, Mt. Vernon. Tickets: https://es.brownpapertickets.com/event/4099664, or 360 941-5744. Closes July 27.