Shakespeare may be known for his soliloquies, but it's quite a challenge to present each of the Bard's plays with one single actor plus a selection of household objects. Table Top Shakespeare is being performed as part of Paris's Festival d'automne.
We've all done it. You're telling a story at the dinner table and feel the need to help your listeners really visualise the situation. The table turns into a football pitch, the salt and pepper into players. The sugar bowl becomes a roundabout and a fork and knife the cars the narrowly missed hitting each other....
Sheffield-based theatre company Forced Entertainment has applied the same technique to Shakespeare. Not just one play, but all 36, each summarised in under an hour by a sole actor.
It's a fascinating exercise in storytelling, bringing a story to life. Whether that is a familiar one like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, or one of the less-performed plays like Henry IV or Cymbeline. It could make a great language teaching activity, too: telling a tale with the aid of simple props.
Table Top Shakespeare
11-20 October
Théâtre de la Ville Espace Cardin
Tickets 10-12 euros
The plays are in English without surtitles.
Copyright(s) :
Hugo Glendinning
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