Shakespearean Tales

Prague is a mysterious creature. Trams run fast, yet silent. Number 22 flies silently to Malá Strana, where the roofs turn silver under a nothing but constant moon. Cinnamon shops, and floating couples, manifest from ancient literary memories, not far from here.

The lovers soon to be seen on stage are the eternal (of all) floaters, yet this time they come to the audience from a place of playfulness, and childish punk. Far from Schultz, or Chagall, courtesy of that expats` beating heart which is the Prague Shakespeare Company.

Founded in 2008 by Guy Roberts — can you recognise him?, PSC believes in the universality of Shakespeare`s stories, and their philosophical resonance beyond time and space. `Shakespeare`s words constantly remind us of our own humanity and through his texts we can better understand our own modern experiences, anxieties, and sensibilities`.

An `educational` genetic code which comes to the professionals of the performative arts, and not — that white orchid which is `Shakespeare in ESL`, for instance, via what is known as Shakespeare Intensive on a seasonal basis.

Meant to attract theatre goers with a passion for English, the intention manifests itself loud and clear in the Divadlo Na Prádle foyer, where conversations and gatherings carry multiple sounds, and sight skims the bills of previous productions on the black walls of a cabaret like venue.

This Romeo and Juliet is directed by the founder of the company together with eclectic Cathy Meils, and stars only five actors for a short version of a little longer than an hour. Cuts favour epitome, but narration flows, sustained by all the actors chorally, yet individually.

Playing the role of `the lover of love`, Jared Doreck also reads the idiomatic line assigned to Abraham, Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? While presenting `the perfect lover` is Sinead Phelps who is also performing as Benvolio, in and out by just wearing a white, virginal apron.

Flirtatious — through and beyond the script, their complicity as actors comprehend the audience, designing an entertaining, almost belletrist, `travesty` of their teenaged characters intimacy. Agents of this dramatic, yet far from dramatical, translation into the now, are a crew of `in-and-outers`.

Nurse and Friar and Prince plus Sampson and Escalus, Vanessa Gendron`s energy pairs up with Elissa Levitt`s Tybalt and Paris and Lady Capulet plus Peter, and Jeff Smith`s Mercutio and Lord Capulet plus Gregory and Apothecary.

A festival of talents whose mission of taking through the canon is accomplished. As fast — yet not without extent, as possible.

Luminous blue is the colour of 2022 Hamlet for the Guildford Shakespeare Company staged at Holy Trinity Church. Fluorescent in the touch of dusty air, polished in the impact with the aureate chancel, it turns at times into an unclouded red, altering the presence of the cross. Quite literally, as a spirit, an apparition, a ghost is where the plot comes to be.

Checkered stage set up in front of the altar, audience accommodated along the nave, this familiar non-theatrical venue, vouches for the site-responsive character of the company. GSC — founded by Matt Pinches and Sarah Gobran in 2006, has a solid community oriented nature, nourishing numerous educational projects.

Tom Littler`s production relies on some sort of common, everyday hardship, to build upon the Elsinore clan, beginning with the new regime`s Security Guards — dressed up in blue and retroreflective jacket, requesting Horatio to collect a paramount piece of evidence. Coming from behind the audience, the blue light of Old Hamlet (voiced by Edward Fox, father in real life of the leading actor), soon pierces the fourth wall, rounding it up.

Commonly tragic ordinary couple, despite wealthiness and manners, Claudius and Gertrude — middle-rank oligarchs?, consume their champagne around a coffin that will `uncommonly`, quite never, leave the stage, almost a `bar-like` board, around which to party. Satinized fabric wraps it up, echoing costumes — designed by Neil Irish. Royal adviser, and bishop, Polonius wears a collar with his common grey suit.

Freddie Fox`s Hamlet is pleasant, with his `overtones` and well-directed merry nuances, — when wearing a mitra to lead the `fishmonger` `s speech from a pulpit, when fist-bumping the (one and only) travelling player (a splendid Noel White). `Gigolo-like` in guise and attitude, this latter is captivating while `playing in the play` for the other `actors` who sit on the ground in front of him, turning backs to the audience, `audience in the audience`.

Ophelia (exquisite in eloquence Rosalind Ford) brings the `sober solemnity` of the holy locus in the flesh of the musical insertions — she performs Bach on a `floating` cello, and then transitions into the chapter of her madness with grace and virtuosity. So that when holding Yorick`s skull sudden comes his adulthood, the Prince`s infuriating incapacity gives way to a clumsy sacrifice in the heart of an ordinary tragedy.