{"id":17873,"date":"2019-07-05T12:37:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T19:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17873"},"modified":"2021-05-24T10:18:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T17:18:11","slug":"greater-victoria-shakespeare-festival-evolving-with-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/07\/05\/greater-victoria-shakespeare-festival-evolving-with-the-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival evolving with the times"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Every summer, The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival sets up its stage outdoors at Camosun\u2019s Lansdowne campus and performs two Shakespeare plays. This year, the festival is tackling Julius Caesar<\/em> and one of The Bard\u2019s first works, Two Gentlemen of Verona<\/em>. At the helm of the production of Two Gentlemen<\/em> is director Christopher Weddell, who has made the decision to do an adaptation, setting the piece in 1960s Italy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI just love that era in Italian film,\u201d says Weddell, \u201cand the subject matter lends itself quite well to it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Despite being set in the \u201960s, the text will remain in its classic Shakespearian form. However, thanks to some controversial themes in the show, Weddell has done a little tweaking.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival takes Two Gentlemen of Verona and sets it in Italy in the 1960s (photo by Lara Eichhorn).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a little bit of rewriting and reworking of parts of the play,\u201d he admits. \u201cIt\u2019s quite problematic in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The problem stems from the fact that show is based on the concept of male friendship, which in Shakespeare\u2019s time, Weddell explains, was held in higher regard than romantic relationships. In the original ending of the play, one male lead tries to force his girlfriend to unwillingly return the affections of his best friend.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this assault which is followed by the woman who is assaulted is silent for the rest of the play,\u201d says Weddell. \u201cSo, we have to find a way off text, through blocking, visual language, to continue telling the story, to continue to give her a voice.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Weddell says he and the cast spent a lot of time talking about that aspect of the play and took their time to rehearse it to make sure everyone was comfortable with the storyline.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cA happy ending, in my view, had to be adjusted given what happens in the play,\u201d he says.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The adjustment to the pieces of the play that don\u2019t line up with current views on consent, gender issues, and sexual politics was something Weddell was happy to embrace, although he points out that reworking Shakespeare to better fit the times has been done for centuries.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWith this one, it was really the issues at the core that we really had to look at and adjust, but that\u2019s been done with Shakespeare\u2019s work going back to the 1700s and the 1800s,\u201d he says. \u201cHis plays were cut and adjusted. Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, at one point in the 18th century, had a happy ending, so great liberties have been taken with his plays over the years.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Despite the controversial ending, Two Gentlemen of Verona<\/em> is a comedy. Weddell explains that the characters are larger than life and the passions of the young lovers are huge\u2014and paralleled in an unlikely way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThere\u2019s quite a bit of slapstick in the play. There\u2019s a love relationship between this very, kind of… clown and dog, and that\u2019s probably actually the most honourable relationship in the whole play,\u201d says Weddell. (Weddell admits that having a real dog in an outdoor theatre production is a bit of a wild card\u2014\u201cWe have deer wandering by on occasion.\u201d)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Weddell says that part of the joy of Shakespeare is finding the themes that are important to the audience the play is currently being told for. Blending the rich language and universal themes is what he finds exciting about producing Shakespeare in 2019.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe language is hugely important to me, the way it challenges us in this less literate age\u2014the fact that we\u2019re asked to put our devices away and, you know,\u201d he says, \u201cpay attention to something that challenges us.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival
Various times and prices (student discount available)
Friday, July 5 to Saturday, July 27
Lansdowne campus, Camosun College
Thursday, August 1 to Saturday, August 3
Saxe Point Park
vicshakespeare.com<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every summer, The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival sets up its stage outdoors at Camosun\u2019s Lansdowne campus and performs two Shakespeare plays. This year, the festival is tackling Julius Caesar and one of The Bard\u2019s first works, Two Gentlemen of Verona. At the helm of the production of Two Gentlemen is director Christopher Weddell, who has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21092,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17873\/revisions\/21092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}