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July 29, 2004

FESTIVAL TAKES BARD TO OLD WEST, ASIA

A gunslinging Petruchio tries to tame Kate in the Old West, while a paranoid Macbeth plots to kill those who threaten his Asian kingdom.

The settings are different, but the words are just as William Shakespeare composed them over 400 years ago.

The 30th annual Houston Shakespeare Festival will transplant two of the Bard’s classics – “Macbeth” and “The Taming of the Shrew” – to new locations, ancient Asia and late 19th century western America.

Such creative liberties won’t dampen the overall feel of either production. According to Sidney Berger, director of the University of Houston’s School of Theatre and the festival’s founder, the plays’ language often works more effectively in such disparate settings.

“The dialect in which Shakespeare wrote his plays is entirely different than that of contemporary British actors,” said Berger, who is directing the festival’s production of “The Taming of the Shrew.”

The Houston Shakespeare Festival kicks off at 8 p.m. on July 30 at the Miller Outdoor Theatre with “Macbeth.” Admission is free, but tickets are required for covered seating. Tickets are available (four per person) on the day of performance at the Miller Box Office between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. and again one hour before performance. All unclaimed seats are released five minutes before curtain. For further information, contact the Miller Theatre Box Office at (713) 284-8352.

The dates for each production are as follows:

“Macbeth”
directed by Rob Bundy
July 30, August 5, 7, 11, 15

“The Taming of the Shrew”
directed by Sidney Berger
July 31, August 4, 6, 12, 14

For more information, visit
http://www.hfac.uh.edu/theatre/Performance
/hsf.htm

“When I directed Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus,’ I re-set it in a southern setting, and the language worked well in a southern drawl,” he said. “The language fits ‘Shrew’ perfectly as well. Placing this play in the 1880s revives the love of language that westerners had.”

Both plays feature student and equity actors and will run on alternate evenings at Hermann Park’s Miller Outdoor Theatre.

According to Berger, the open-air atmosphere of the theatre has lent an air of authenticity to each year’s festival. Not unlike the outdoor London playhouses that housed Shakespeare’s original productions, the urban setting of Miller Outdoor Theatre offers an atmosphere that is relaxing for both the actors and the audiences.

“The audiences are in a similar environment as that of a baseball game,” Berger said. “They are at ease. They don’t have to be well dressed. They can scream, talk back to the actors and drink wine much like audiences did in Shakespeare’s day. The actors themselves perform with the same candor as the ones who originally played these roles hundreds of years ago. This is the kind of atmosphere that should be present for Shakespeare’s plays.”

Mike Emery
memery@central.uh.edu