Resurrection by David Lane was commissioned by the Theatre Royal Bath as part of their Shakespeare Unplugged Festival and was staged as a site-specific piece at Burdall’s Yard.
Directed by Heidi Vaughn.
Designed by Carl Davies.
Lighting Design by Luke John Emmett.
Here is a review from Crysse Morrison on her blog (http://crysse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/renaissance-to-resurrection-and-town.html?spref=tw&m=1)
Over in Bath the 3-week Shakespeare Unplugged Festival ended with Resurrection, a retelling by local writer David Lane of themes in five different plays, performed by the Engage Shakespeare Company.
Coincidentally this experience too began with a coach journey, as the audience was collected from Bath Egg and ferried to Burdell’s Yard for a promenade-style performance in awesomely atmospheric settings, each suited the theme and mood of the scene. The concept is intriguing: What if these famous characters had evaded the death delivered by Shakespeare and lived on ~ in King Lear’s case for 29 years, psychotic & inarticulate, tended by a now-cynical Cordelia. Ophelia resents her totem status, Titus’ daughter has wrenched her father’s tongue out to voice her vengeance, and two children, both princes usurped, have processed trauma in very different ways. Programme notes say the aim is to ‘haul Shakespeare’s themes into the 21st Century’: there’s much madness and murderous rage though in places the haulage maybe slightly lost in translation to anyone unfamiliar with the plays. That’s not of course what matters ~ the monologues are gripping, and the stories vivid and visceral, timeless rather than merely contemporised, shifting through different rhythms so this almost seemed more like a symphony than a play. This exciting and richly theatrical production ends as it begins with a call to find our own tongues: Shakespeare would have appreciated this full-circling wheel.
View a selection of the official photographs of the production by Nick Spratling (www.theofficialphotographer.co.uk) below:
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