WINTER SEASON 2001
- Catdoghorse Theatre Company
- Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
- Baron's Court Theatre, West Kensington
- March 6th - 25th , 7.45pm (not Mondays)
- £8 / £6
- company formed in 1999
- company aim: to provide the best young actors in London, especially those unable to afford drama school, with the opportunity to present challenging new and classical theatre at top London and national venues outside the West End
- founders and artistic directors: Tom Mallaburn, 23, and Joel Wilson, 21, graduates of Durham University
- both Mallaburn and Wilson are associate directors at the British Touring Shakespeare
Company and have worked on their productions of As You Like It (1998), Love's
Labour's Lost (1999), and Much Ado About Nothing (2000)
- Catdoghorse also commissions new work: a divine comedy The Lapse of the Gods by Henry Timms was performed last August at the Edinburgh Festival; a new psychological drama Three Brothers and a Corpse by Jamie Campbell has been commissioned for this year's festival.
- Previous productions:
1 A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999, dir. Joel Wilson)
"a masterful interpretation....brilliant" Artslink
2 A Fridge Too Far - a comedy revue (1999, Edinburgh Fringe, dir. Jamie Campbell)
"a wickedly observant ensemble, none of whom put a foot wrong" The Scotsman
3 The Lapse of the Gods a divine comedy by Henry Timms (2000, Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe, dir Tom Mallaburn)
"executed with Pythonesque precision....a compelling experience" The Stage
- the aims of their current production, Measure for Measure, which started rehearsals at the beginning of January: to perform a lesser known Shakespeare play in a theatre where the audience is very close to the actors, thus encouraging a very intimate relationship with actor and audience, making the production relevant, clear and involving.
- Measure for Measure director Tom Mallaburn says: "A common held view is that Shakespeare's language is a barrier to a modern audience. People tend to think of Shakespeare as almost a foreign language and impossible to understand. The problem is essentially that yes, the Elizabethan audience that Shakespeare was writing for spoke English in a much different way than we do today. They used a lot more words, basically. They expressed emotion in a much more open way than we do today. Nowadays emotional outbursts are considered embarrassing, unusual or amusing. Why scream and shout when you can convey your grievances much more clearly by e-mail or the answer machine?
The Elizabethans may have spoken differently but they said exactly the same things, thought exactly the same thoughts, experienced exactly the same emotions as we do in 2001. It is the job of an actor to make this clear to an audience. And not through the patronising use of rap music, guns or expressions like "f**k you, Ophelia, you slag!". Countless video shops provide this service. What disturbs an audience more is if for 90 minutes the clarity of the words makes them re-experience emotions they have collected over a life-time.
It is not enough for the audience to draw obvious parallels between the corrupt politician in the play and the - guess what? - corrupt politician they read about in the papers. The highest aim of the theatre, and Shakespeare should be making this task easier, must be for the audience to recognise their own faults, tragedies and ecstasies in the characters, and in the relationships between those characters, they see on the stage. Otherwise it's just sanitised, sound-bite/cup of tea/go to bed drama. The new Robson Green "emotional" two-parter.
Young actors, especially if they are more used to performing modern drama, can find this task mountainous. Normally exciting and absorbing actors can get caught in the headlights and over-think the problem - nervy, awkward, declamatory acting can be the result. The rehearsal ethos of Measure for Measure has been "keep it simple, tell the story, let the words direct you, don't force anything, don't disguise uncertainty with unnatural gestures or showy movement, enjoy the beautiful words and situations." The plot of Measure for Measure is interesting and ambiguous and I hope the audience enjoy the convolutions and uncertain morality. But for me the success of the project lies in the audience's personal response to the characters' thoughts and insecurities."
- Plot of Measure for Measure:
the failing ruler of corrupt Vienna, Duke Vincentio, decides to take an apparent leave-of-absence and leave his puritan deputy Angelo in charge. However, the Duke remains in Vienna disguised as a Friar and observes the results. Angelo throws anyone guilty of even the most minor sexual transgression into prison and sentences Claudio, a young man who has made his fiancee pregnant, to death. Claudio's sister, Isabella a trainee nun pleads with Angelo for her brother's life. Angelo initially refuses but then falls in love with Isabella, and offers her a reprieve for her brother if she agrees to sleep with him. Outraged, Isabella refuses but is later persuaded by the Duke, who hears of Angelo's hypocrisy, to agree to the deal but to swap places with Mariana, a woman who was betrothed to Angelo but who he later wronged, thereby incriminating Angelo and forcing him to marry Mariana.
A morally ambiguous play, where none of the characters can be described as totally good or totally bad, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure defies classification as a comedy or tragedy, and has often been called his "problem" play.
- Catdoghorse's modern dress production seeks to illuminate the play's numerous moral contradictions and cynical view of humanity.
- The play has a scene which involves the head of a pirate being sent to the Duke's deputy, Angelo, disguised as that of Claudio who has been condemned to death. In order to create this head, Catdoghorse artist Bob Capocci had to create a plaster caste print of actor Stephen Palmer's head. First Stephen's face had to be rubbed in vaseline, then he had white modelling clay smeared all over his face his only means of breathing being too straws placed in his nose and held in place by children's plasticine. The process took several hours, whilst the clay dried around Stephen's face. Stephen says of his ordeal, "It was pretty hot in there. When they took the caste off my face, I wasn't able to open my eyes for several minutes since several bits of clay had set around my eye lashes. I hope the head doesn't break and we have to do it again!"
