Just returned from a terrific evening of over the top acting, knockabout theatricality and the best rendition of “to be or not to be” I have ever heard – recited by a four-headed Shakespeare.
Travelling theatre company Footsbarn don’t do subtle. They do in-yer-face, cut the crap theatre. Their brash theatricality veers between irritating and invigorating. It’s like hardcore Panto or Kneeghigh without the cutesy bits.
I first saw Footsbarn as a child near Avignon in France. They were staying on the same campsite and I looked at their colourfully painted caravans with awe and envy. The hand to mouth existence of this travelling group of players pitching up their stage somewhere different each night just seemed like the most adventurous and romantic way of living ever.
Now after an absence of almost two decades they have returned to England and are partying at the Globe. Shakespeare Party is an irreverent “best of” edit of the canon featuring Ophelia in a waterfall, Romeo and Juliet on the highwire, hacked off limbs flying out of a cauldron and some midget getting high on magic mushrooms (no idea from which play the latter is spurned…)
It’s approaching that season when awful productions of A Midsummer-night’s Dream are put on in every bush and grassy path in Britain and picnicking crowds can watch actors camp up iambic pentameter. What sets Footsbarn apart from the usual Shakespeare pageant is the unapologetic deftness of it all, real anarchic verve and madcap flair. An ideology of irreverence lies under everything they do. It’s really, really stupid and really funny. It’s coarse theatre that celebrates itself as such.
The Globe is an amazing venue. I’d always considered it a tourist attraction or ‘museum theatre’. But I’ve rarely felt the power of the audience so strongly as here. The relationship between stage and audience, the standing, milling, shuffling spectators and the performers’ total exposure are deeply fascinating. It’s an ideal location for Shakespeare Party.
During the course of the bard romp enough mess is created to match Forced Entertainment standards, I desperately want to raid the company’s surreal costume store and a Cello is unintentionally smashed. We hope Footsbarn return!
Philip
