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Bard in the Botanics - Ten Years of Open-Air Shakespeare in Glasgow

It's quite an odd sensation for Gordon Barr being indoors. On the eve
of the launch of the tenth anniversary of Bard in the Botanics, the
annual festival of open-air Shakespeare that takes place in Glasgow's
Royal Botanic Gardens, the company's artistic director finds himself
spending Saturday afternoon in Scottish Youth Theatre's Brian Cox
Studio overseeing an epic production of The War of the Roses trilogy
performed by twenty-one final year acting students from RSAMD.

While this dramatic conflation of Henry V1 parts one, two and three and
Richard 111 will later play in the open-air over three nights, for one
day only at least, Barr has the luxury of not having to keep an eye on
the weather forecast, lest rain stop play as has happened more often
than he'd like over the last decade. This year, however, Barr,
associate director Jennifer Dick and their core ensemble of actors have
come prepared. Because, while the large marquee that's about to be
planted in the grounds of the Botanics will primarily provide a home
for Barr's swinging musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, a
seasonal if unsurprising winner of a public vote to find the people's
favourite Shakespeare play, the tent will also act as a safehouse and
shelter for other productions in the season that would otherwise fall
prey to the elements. Throw in a rare sighting of Pericles in the
Kibble Palace, and this year's Bard in the Botanics looks set to go
through its driest spell yet.

“It's good to have the back-up option of a tent,” Barr admits, “because
after nine years of nights being rained off, it becomes a little bit
wearing. Most years we're okay, but sometimes you just want to do the
play, but the rain won't allow it.”

Whatever the weather, A Midsummer Night's Dream is always a winner,
although Barr promises something different from standard summer fare.

“Perhaps it's not a surprise that A Midsummer Night's Dream won the
vote,” he says, “because it is seen as the ultimate outdoor play. So if
that's the case, then let's put it in a tent and make it a musical set
in a burlesque jazz club. There's musical numbers taken from anywhere
and everywhere from Ella Fitzgerald to Lady Gaga, all done in a jazz
style, so we hope people will come along and get something they perhaps
didn't quite expect.”

If A Midsummer Night's Dream is being reconstituted in such a manner,
neither is the rest of this year's Bard in the Botanics season obvious
in terms of its outdoor action. The company's first ever production of
Hamlet, indeed, might well be best viewed during torrential rain, while
Pericles, Prince of Tyre is rarely seen indoors or out.

“Jennifer has a real affinity with and love for Hamlet,” Barr explains,
“and she's been building her repertoire over the last few years, and
now feels the right time for her to tackle it, as well as for us to do
what's probably the last of the really big titles we've never done
before. As for Pericles, it's part of what we jokingly call the
lesser-spotted Shakespeare. Most people don't really know it, but it's
got some great writing in it, as well as some potentially dodgy writing
and a crazy road-movie feel that allows you to play around with it and
make a feature of only having a cast of four.”

Bard in the Botanics was born from an idea by American ex-pat director
Scott Palmer, who picked up on a series of shows put on by Glasgow
University lecturer Steve Bottoms at the West End Festival. Palmer had
trained at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and when Bottoms moved on,
Palmer grabbed the mantle to continue.

“We all thought, you crazy American, how long have you been in
Scotland, outdoors, are you mad? But he said it would work, and
brought this positive spirit that he has to the project, and he was
right, it did work.”

While initially looking like an expanded exercise in student drama,
Bard in the Botanics has slowly but surely professionalised its
operations as it's gone on. As student actors moved into the industry,
a network developed across several generations of performers, and Barr
cites 2006 as a turning point.

“We'd been going long enough to make our presence felt,” he says, “and
that seemed to be the year more experienced actors joined the ensemble
and more people in the theatre community started coming along to see
people they knew and thinking it was quite good.”

One of the most recent developments for Bard in the Botanics has been
the development of its Emerging Artists scheme, which exists in a
similar vein to the graduate schemes in place at Dundee Rep and the
Citizens Theatre, and which enables young actors and directors to work
alongside more experienced professionals. One of these is Marc
Silberschatz, a directing graduate who last year directed Titus
Andronicus, and this year tackled the first part of The Wars of the
Roses.

As for the man who started it all, these days Palmer is overseeing a
similarly styled open-air Shakespeare festival in Portland, Oregon.

“We send each other our production shots,” Barr says, “and where ours
are always grey, his are always full of glorious sunshine.”

Whatever the weather, though, “There's an event nature to open-air
Shakespeare,” Barr says, “where you get a group of friends and a
picnic, and a lot of barriers, where people might be intimidated by
Shakespeare, aren't there. But because of that you really have to
engage directly with your audience, because there are distractions, and
people can walk away from you at any point. So making that connection
between what we do with Bard in the Botanics and our audience is
absolutely crucial.”

Even so, while open-air Shakespeares have become as heritage industry
staple of the summer theatre season on the lawns of English manor
houses, Bard in the Botanics has always subverted expectations, and not
just with the more familiar plays in the canon either. Way back in 2002
Palmer directed Kabuki-Titus, a Japanese-styled look at Titus
Andronicus, while Palmer's swansong for the company three years later
with a three-actor take on King Lear. In 2006, David Leddy's
site-specific sound-based promenade, Susurrus, premiered as part of
bard in the Botanics prior to a successful Edinburgh Festival Fringe
revival.

More recently in 2010, Jennifer Dick devised and directed Queen
Margaret, taken from the same plays as The Wars of the Roses nut
focusing on the triangular relationship between the French born monarch
and the two men in her life, husband Henry and man who would be king,
Richard. Reconstituted to a World War Two framework and performed in
the Kibble Palace, Queen Margaret was the sort of audacious cut-up of
Shakespeare that has rarely been seen since Charles Marowitz's arts lab
experiments of the 1960s.

“Scott really likes to mess around with Shakespeare,” Barr says, “and
that aspect of the work has continued, and that's important. We want to
be viewed as a popular theatre company doing Shakespeare, but we don't
want to be viewed as a tourist attraction. Bard in the Botanics is far
more serious than that.”

A Midsummer Night's Dream, June 22nd-July9th; The Wars of the Roses,
July 6th-8th; Hamlet, July 13th-30th; Pericles, Prince of Tyre, July
19th-30th.
www.bardinthebotanics.org

The Herald, June 7th 2011

ends

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for this, Neil! It was great to see such a wonderful write up of Bard in the Botanics' 10 year anniversary, and really nice to get a nod from you (and Gordon) about my role in starting the tradition! I miss Glasgow and the Botanics, but have my own outdoor summer Shakespeare issues to deal with...like 105 degree heat (no midges or rain, just actors passing out from sunstroke!) - Scott Palmer
Neil Cooper said…
Thanks, Scott.

Good to hear from you, and glad to hear Shakespeare's still keeping you busy.

It must be tough with all that sunshine...

Best

N

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