Propeller aim to take Shakespeare to new heights
PROPELLER the M.E.N Theatre Award-winning company, directed by Edward Hall, have long had a sterling reputation for their innovative approach to Shakespeare.
Not least because the M.E.N Theatre Award-winning company, directed by Edward Hall, are all male.
So it’s intriguing that for their current tour, which comes to The Lowry next week, they’ve chosen to pair two of the Bard’s best-known plays – The Merchant Of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The thinking behind the pairing, explains Edward (yes, he’s the son of Sir Peter), is that ‘that they’re such different sorts of plays that it’s almost like they were written by a different writer’.
“There really is an extraordinary contrast between them,” he said.
But doesn’t that fact alone drive the cast crazy, having to perform the plays in what amounts to an old-style repertory system?
“No, because we find we’re constantly revealing the plays to ourselves,” he replies.
“I can always relate the plays to the world around me and, as that’s in a state of constant flux, the plays themselves are constantly new and intriguing. That’s even after touring the world with Dream, from Huddersfield to Bangladesh.”
In fact, Propeller originally staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream in an extraordinary, deliriously-received production six years ago, that I was lucky enough to see at their home-base theatre, the Watermill, at Newbury.
Then it was a production full of mischief, that was determinedly odd, slightly unsettling and, above all, very, very funny. It played to equal acclaim everywhere.
“It didn’t feel like we were going over old ground at all with this production,” Edward enthuses.
“This is a new cast and that always makes things exciting.”
The Merchant Of Venice, by contrast, is a far tougher, more emotionally-draining play.
Moral ambiguities
“Of course, it’s a play that’s full of moral ambiguities but what both these plays do have in common is that they’re very tightly constructed,” he says.
"You can always find something new and fresh even in the most often-seen Shakespeare plays. That’s why they still speak to audiences all over the world. I think good theatre is about metaphor – and Shakespeare’s poetic drama is chock-full of it.”
The peculiar strength of British theatre audiences, he maintains, is that ‘we demand experiment’.
“Our audiences don’t like to see the same thing twice and are very perceptive in terms of metaphor and meaning. We tend to go and see shows because we’ve heard they’re good, rather than because of certain actors.
"But we’re bad at supporting artists, whether they’re actors, directors, sculptors, or writers.
“We demand excellence but don’t see that there should be a healthy environment in which they can work. It’s a truism that art comes from suffering but there’s a good deal too much of it now!
“There seems to be an obsessive need for overweight bureaucracy in the arts, largely laid down by politicians. Especially in theatre, you end up applying for all sorts of schemes which means fulfilling criteria and which ends up dictating what sort of work you do.
"It must be one of the only arts where we’re being told what to put on by people who know nothing about it.
“There are decisions being made by people who are deeply inexperienced who are earning twice as much as any of us. We have to start listening to artists instead of telling them what to do.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens at The Lowry on Tuesday, June 9. The Merchant Of Venice opens at The Lowry on Wednesday, June 10. Call 0870 787 5780.
Published: Thu, 04 June, 2009
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