Shakespeare in Doha

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SHAKESPEARE IN DOHA

On the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare, we sat down at Shakespeare Street in Katara to watch the entire collection of his plays (and sonnets) brought to life by the Reduced Shakespeare Company – in one and a half hours or less.

By Ayswarya Murthy

98 > QATAR TODAY > APRIL 2016

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ccidently stumbling on the rehearsal in progress, we heard Austin Tichenor discussing Sigmund Freud’s id, ego and superego with his co-star Dan Saski (Saski would later be unrecognisable due to the fact that he is in various dresses for most part of the show; Shakespeare would have been so proud).

Even though we knew the nature of the performance we were about to witness, it still felt ridiculously out of place. In retrospect, that was probably the least ridiculous bit, considering that at one point during the play we actually saw miniature animatronic dinosaurs. This is Shakespeare, like you have never seen him before. One stage, three actors, 37 plays (and a small, laminated 3x5 card that somehow contained all the sonnets) and 97 minutes of roaring fun. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).

The performance kicks off with the

actors each addressing the audience, beginning with the third actor, Tiger Reel.

You are shown right away that the fourth wall is non-existent. There is nothing preventing the actors from calling for the houselights and then coming over to pull up one of the audience members to the stage (yes, that happened. Twice. Not even a baby, who was quietly minding his own business and keeping busy with one of his parents’ mobile phones, was spared). The interactive element of the show was a nice surprise and the wonderfully spontaneous sense of humour, the three thespians possess, made it especially so. Whether they are playfully berating a flip flop-wearing theatre-goer or quizzing another audience member on her knowledge of Shakespeare, their jokes are spot on.

Tichenor, the veteran of the troupe, has been with the company for 24 years.

According to him, Shakespeare has never been irrelevant. No matter what year or

Pictures Courtesy: The Reduced Shakespeare Company

which part of the world. “In recent times, Shakespeare has made a comeback into our popular culture and so, performing Complete Works is all the more exciting and rewarding,” he says. And touring with the show for all these years has helped him realise how international Shakespeare’s works really are. “Which is why we are always eager to bring the show to places that have never seen it before. There’s always a new audience for it. This is our first time in Qatar. A year and a half ago, we took the show to China, where we performed in English while two giant monitors ran subtitles in Chinese,” he laughs.

Like Tichenor says, we all know more Shakespeare than we think we do. “Even people who think they are not familiar with his works suddenly go – hey! I know that speech.” The show is bookended by the playwright’s most famous works – it begins with Romeo and Juliet and concludes with Hamlet. There is no uniformity to how the plays are structured. Hamlet takes up all of the second half while all of the 17 comedies are condensed into one single line. Nor are the formats of the plays predictable. Titus Andronicus is presented as a cooking show, Othello is told in the form of a rap battle (after the actors unanimously decide that while a white actor playing the part of Othello the Moor would be a gross misrepresentation, one of them donning a blackface would be way too inappropriate) and all the histories are covered through a violent and exciting game of American football. It all adds to the chaotic fun.

Out of the six shows the company put up in Doha, three were performed in various British schools. “We were invited

by Park House English School and the idea was to do a series of performances and workshops for the kids. It was fantastic. From the beginning, we have always had a lot of school groups coming to

the show. It’s always been part of the component of who we are and what we do. It’s not just meant to be fun and entertaining but we are also conscious of the fact that we might be many of the kids’ first introduction to theatre and to Shakespeare. We wanted to make sure that both felt accessible.”

The company has been around for 35 years and has created eight other shows, including “The Complete History of America (abridged)”, “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)”, “The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged)”, “All the Great Books (abridged)”, “Completely Hollywood (abridged)”, “The Complete World of Sports (abridged)”, “The Ultimate Christmas Show (abridged)” and “The Complete History of Comedy (abridged)”. “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is definitely the most popular of all our shows. It was the first show we did (created 27 years ago), it got us famous but then we were asked – what next? It got us thinking. We decided to take other large things and reduce them,” Tichenor says.

“Our newest show, which premieres next month, is a return to our Shakespearean roots. The idea of the play is that we find a manuscript in a hole in a parking lot in Leicester next to some bones that didn’t look so important. It’s massive, contains every famous speech and character. It’s 100 hours long and we have to cut it down.

We are putting on this show for the first time ever at Folger Theater at Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. It’s the perfect place to launch it; it has the largest collection of folios and quartos and related works in the world. While Complete Works is a great introduction to the world’s most famous playwright, William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) is a great next step.”

QATAR TODAY > APRIL 2016 > 99