Love in all its wonderful, terrible, and complex forums is presented in Shakespeare In Love, a play using scenes from Shakespeare’s various works, showing both the light and dark sides of being in love. Directors Ian Case, Kate Rubin and Karen Lee Pickett guide an engaging cast though the historic Craigdarroch Castle in this unique performance.
The play is held not just in one part of the castle, but throughout different rooms and hallways for each scene, up and down the castle’s three floors (making comfortable shoes highly recommended). Although the show requires much moving and shuffling to accommodate the setting of each scene, the cast did an excellent job of keeping the audience’s attention, start to end. The placement of the audience around stairwells and dining room tables gives a view of the show from all sides, as cast members performed up close and personal.
The show started on the castle’s main stairwell, with the scene from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo discusses with Benvolio his unrequited love. From there, it moved though scenes that tackled painful and difficult aspects of love, from The Taming of the Shrew and Measure for Measure and then to Henry V, where Camosun grad Adam Holroyd performed a moving monologue as he won over the heart of Catherine.
The play then shifted to the sweet innocence of new love in Romeo and Juliet and what it is that makes the painful aspects worthwhile. It all comes together on a lighter note with the funny and very strange last scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which included all members of the cast and ended with a song. After the show, tea and cupcakes were served in the dining room.
The show is brilliantly organized to flow through what could have been a confusing switching of scenes and settings and actors playing various roles. Contextual information as it moves though the different plays is easy to follow, with clever interludes by Michelle Chowns and Camosun student Amy Lee Radigan, making no previous knowledge about the plays necessary to understanding the scenes.
The cast pulled it all off despite being exposed to the sometimes unanticipated participation of the audience, who was up close, at every angle.
Shakespeare In Love
Until February 14
Craigdarroch Castle
thecastle.ca