King’s Theatre 4 stars When a rowdy bunch burst noisily through the auditorium wielding a felled, full-size tree-trunk at the opening of Dmitry Krymov’s Russian language reimagining of Shakespeare’s frothiest rom-com, only the little dog padding about astride the tree truly knows what we’re in for. Krymov’s production, commissioned by the Chekhov International Theatre Festival for his School of Dramatic Art Theatre, after all, is billed as something ‘after Shakespeare’ rather than of it. So it goes in a wildly irreverent work that puts the Rude Mechanicals at the centre of the action rather than cast as the usual comic fall guys, even if there are prat-falls aplenty. Once the tree-trunk, then a leaky fountain, is disposed of on a stage covered with plastic sheeting, the troupe of players change into formal attire as they await their audience. This comes in the shape of a bunch of disgruntled toffs, whose mobile phones interrupt the action in a makeshift VIP area even as the sternest of their number complains throughout. There is no forest and no Bottom’s dream, only Pyramus and Thisbe, who come in the form of giant junk-shop puppets operated by the Mechanicals. There are acrobatics and operatics, while the dog does back-flips in-between fending off a rubbish lion, able to take anything in his four-legged stride. On one level, this is a glorious entertainment, right down to a finale involving a part Scat, part Kurt Schwitters style chorus and a tippy-toed take on Swan Lake. On another, it’s a fantastical theatrical in-joke performed with vaudevillian largesse. As the little old lady who’s been growling through proceedings onstage herself says, Shakespeare would have loved it. The Herald, August 25th 2012 ends
Intro – Snapshots – Deaf School
1
In 1980, the same year as the Manchester band, Magazine, released a 7
inch single called A Song From Under The Floorboards – a three verse
and chorus distillation of Dostoyevsky's novel, Notes From Underground
– an art school scandal occurred.
This scandal took place in Liverpool, and was based around a project
called the Furbelows, although it became better known in the Liverpool
Echo and other organs that reported it as the Woolly Nudes.
The Furbelows, or Woolly Nudes, were a group of artists who had come
out of Liverpool College of Art, who, dressed in grotesque woolly
costumes which featured knitted approximations of male and female
genitalia, made assorted public interventions around the city centre as
kind of living sculptures acting out assorted narratives.
The Furbelows project had been funded by what was then Merseyside Arts
Association, and, after the participants were arrested and taken to
court on obscenity charges after what…
1
In 1980, the same year as the Manchester band, Magazine, released a 7
inch single called A Song From Under The Floorboards – a three verse
and chorus distillation of Dostoyevsky's novel, Notes From Underground
– an art school scandal occurred.
This scandal took place in Liverpool, and was based around a project
called the Furbelows, although it became better known in the Liverpool
Echo and other organs that reported it as the Woolly Nudes.
The Furbelows, or Woolly Nudes, were a group of artists who had come
out of Liverpool College of Art, who, dressed in grotesque woolly
costumes which featured knitted approximations of male and female
genitalia, made assorted public interventions around the city centre as
kind of living sculptures acting out assorted narratives.
The Furbelows project had been funded by what was then Merseyside Arts
Association, and, after the participants were arrested and taken to
court on obscenity charges after what…
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