Friday night I saw MacBeth with the Grassroots Shakespeare Company and they did a PHENOMINAL job. The show was minimal and goofy: they had no budget, no director, 2 weeks of rehearsal, and were borrowing the venue. Each character costumed/prop-ed themselves, and they staged the play as a cast. It was the true Shakespearean expirience:I was a groundling.
The cast jumped in and out of the audience
the audience shouted at the performers.
one of my favorite moments of the evening was when Lady MacBeth said, "out damn spot!" and a groundling shouted "TRY CLUB SODA" bah ha ha
with all these distractions, they kept the integrity of the play, and it was incredibly powerful.
- My second shakespeare show this weekend was The Tempest put on by The Pioneer Theater Company at the University of Utah. It was fantastic. Some highlights:
- the stage was set up like a workshop, with a stage in the middle. The magic Prospero produced was compared to the magic of Shakespeare putting on a play.
- there was a very interesting relationship between Prospero and Ariel that they portrayed through a series of attempts to physically connect hands, then when prospero gave up his magic, they could for the first time touch. It was a moving moment, and added depth to their characters/relationship that was not written in the text.
- we got to talk to the cast after for a few minutes. They all seemed like very neat people. One kind of funny phenomenon was Ariel spoke and moved her hands almost the EXACT same way she did on stage in character
Quite the Wonderful Weekend in my opinion.
