As a setting for Shakespeare it would be hard to beat the café balcony of the historic Pah Homestead. The action flows around quirky sculptures from the Wallace Collection while the sound of chirping cicadas blends with random bird calls and the softly modulating light of the western sky provides a spectacularly dramatic backdrop.

The excerpts are loosely connected under the theme of rebellion, though if you were to raise the question posed in The Wild One – “Hey Johnny what are you rebelling against?” – the answer would echo Brando’s laconic “Whadda you got?” [More]

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Looking out upon the tastefully cultivated back lawn of the Pah Homestead with its magnificent tree-lined view, and set about with intriguing and eclectic contemporary sculptures, the only clues to an imminent performance are a few strategically placed lights, one small white rostrum and of course the convened audience.

The common thread in this anthological depiction of scenes from the olde Bard’s classic tragedies, comedies and histories is the presence of key characters’ rebellious attitudes, which more often than not profoundly affect the outcome of the larger tale.  To this end Artistic Director Grae Burton has assembled a cast of six accomplished thespians, also appearing himself in ‘guest roles’ and fleshing out a couple of mob scenes.  

There’s a sense that seasoned veteran Simon Prast is a sort of patriarchal mentor to the rest of the cast, probably due to some extent to his taking the title role in the opening scene from the beginning of King Lear.  Youngest daughter Cordelia (Moana McArtney) is supposedly the rebel in this one, for declining to shower the retiring king with flattery, but the private chat between her conniving sisters Goneril (Catherine Boniface) and Regan (Jenny Freed) reveals who this tale’s true rebels are.

This opening scene plays fairly dryly before segueing directly into scene 2, in which The Tempest’s Caliban (McArtney) encounters terrified castaway Trinculo (Paul Trimmer) and his rum-soaked fellow shipmate Stephano (Sam Mannering), whose passable drunk act draws the first collective chuckles from the audience.

Gender roles are reversed for the next two pieces. First, an ostracised Coriolanus (Boniface) boldly marches to the gates of his arch-nemesis Aufidius (Freed) and kneels in service to him, to aid in battle against his own estranged countrymen.  A strong scene straightforwardly played.

Then in a comical excerpt from Twelfth Night, we behold Prast’s feminine though not especially camp Olivia opposite Trimmer’s Viola: a man playing a woman disguised as a man.  Beyond this curious gimmick, it is one of the more entertaining episodes and a good one to conclude the first half.

The second half proffers more of the same, ranging again between cast-against-type experiments and more classically delivered performances.  The dual addresses to the Roman people by Brutus (Prast) and then Marc Antony (Mannering), following Julius Caesar’s assassination, are proclaimed with sufficient import, contrasted by the battle scene from Henry IV part I, in which Prast’s bombastic anti-hero Falstaff is a comic highlight. 

Macbeth once again reverses roles as Ross (Boniface) visits Malcolm (McArtney) and Macduff (Freed) with the tragic news of the slaughter of Macduff’s children.  Making an honest effort, the cast struggles to project the scene’s necessary gravitas in this open-air context, the audience not having observed the preceding events to invest us emotionally. 

The entire cast, including Burton, convene for the start of The Merchant of Venice’s final act, where Portia (Boniface) and Nerissa (Freed) stitch up their respective beaus Bassanio (Mannering) and Gratiano (Burton) over a certain gifted ring, evidently symbolising the integrity of their true love.  Interestingly, the ensuing discussion creates quite a clear picture of the events that took place in the unseen previous act. 

Although there are occasions where audibility is strained, on the whole the cast seem to have strong voices up to the task. For the most part the women seem to take a fairly didactic approach to their roles, allowing the words to speak for themselves, compared to the comparatively character-based turns of the male actors.  Even McArtney’s Caliban has the requisite stoop and gruff manner of Prospero’s deformed servant, yet falls short of an immersive portrayal of the hapless creature’s troubled countenance. 

Ultimately it plays out more like a workshop exercise than a fully realised theatrical production.  There are appealing moments: numerous comic routines such as Burton’s Sir Toby Belch and Prast’s Falstaff, as well as some nicely composed dialogue such as between Prast’s Olivia and Trimmer’s Viola.  

The uncredited charmingly minimal lighting (as darkness descends), and wholly sparse sound effects are presumably also Burton’s work, and I guess no-one got the name of the enthusiastic cricket chirruping musically throughout most of the two hour production.  The loose-fitting costumes are kept simple, essentially using military khaki shirts to indicate male characters, and tie-dyed dresses for females. 

The overall experience is a pleasant one thanks in large part to the splendid location. 

I confess I find the company’s programme notes divulging their favourite Shakespearean plays and lines, and in particular what they would tell Shakespeare to write about if he were alive today and asked them*, more interesting and revealing than much of the capable if somewhat pedestrian performances. 
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* Funny story there: the first one I read was Mr Burton’s, worded thus: “If Shakespeare was alive today what would I ask him to write about – Princess Diana.”
 …I actually thought that was a quote from Princess Di, until I saw the rest of the cast’s suggestions and the penny dropped.

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