Elements 7 Tempest 1
Jul. 1st, 2012 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eilidhsdThere are some concepts so staggeringly stupid that you actually have to admire the people who thought them up. Somehow, there is a grace and nobility of purpose which transcends common sense. Their dreams and inspiration lead them on far beyond where sensible people would go.
One concept which takes foolhardiness into cosmic dimensions is Bard in the Botanics.
The concept itself is, naturally, simple. Take one Bard:
and perform his works in the Botanics:
That's Botanic Gardens. In Glasgow. Scotland.
My calculations may be wrong, but I don't think so; I've been watching fairly closely and I reckon that out of the eight advertised performances of the Tempest, only one has actually taken place in its entirety.
The rest have either been rained off completely, or stopped midway through.
Scotland just does not have that sort of climate. It may seem a lovely idea, sitting outside on the grass on a summer's night, sipping wine, having a picnic and watching Shakespeare, but the reality is a strange sort of chilled stupor.
Tonight was a mid summer night. June 30 (OK it is after midnight now but it was June 30.)
And as we set out for Glasgow it was 14 deg C. That's about 58 deg F.
And we got there, and got settled on the grass. Yes, the postcard shows huge glass palaces, but no, the plays are not performed inside them.
(Apart from two of the performances of Romeo and Juliet after their site flooded this week; those did actually take place in a glasshouse. But the floodwater receded and tonight they were huddled under a little canopy outdoors, outside the glasshouse again.)
So we got settled and the play started and, actually, it was damned good. The bloke playing Prospero has just won a national award, and the rest of the cast were excellent, and we got right through almost to the end of Act 1V. Caliban and the two drunken servants were emerging from the trees - and the first heavy drops of rain fell. And within a minute it was bucketing.
And the actors, already shivering in their thin costumes, were hauled off out the rain and it was announced that there would be a ten-minute break.
Two of the production staff, in the best Wimbledon tradition, then ran out hauling a huge canvas over the set, while we sat like numpties getting wetter and wetter.
Other Half and I then had a discussion and both agreed that we should leave.
But we could not be the first to flee. It would have looked wimpish. We all sat looking sideways at each other, waiting for Someone Else to go first. And nobody did.
So we were drookit when the production guy returned to tell us to bugger off. (Adding, of course, that since over an hour of the action had been performed, we were not entitled to our money back.)
So we all squelched off through the deluge.
As we passed the Romeo and Juliet corner, it was still continuing, with the rain sliding off the flimsy modern canopy and blowing in the open sides upon the equally chilled audience.
And we're home happy. There is something heroic about attempting to perform outdoor theatre in Scotland; and it calls forth an equally heroic response from those in the audience. Either that, or we're as daft as they are. But it was a good night anyway.
One concept which takes foolhardiness into cosmic dimensions is Bard in the Botanics.
The concept itself is, naturally, simple. Take one Bard:
and perform his works in the Botanics:
That's Botanic Gardens. In Glasgow. Scotland.
My calculations may be wrong, but I don't think so; I've been watching fairly closely and I reckon that out of the eight advertised performances of the Tempest, only one has actually taken place in its entirety.
The rest have either been rained off completely, or stopped midway through.
Scotland just does not have that sort of climate. It may seem a lovely idea, sitting outside on the grass on a summer's night, sipping wine, having a picnic and watching Shakespeare, but the reality is a strange sort of chilled stupor.
Tonight was a mid summer night. June 30 (OK it is after midnight now but it was June 30.)
And as we set out for Glasgow it was 14 deg C. That's about 58 deg F.
And we got there, and got settled on the grass. Yes, the postcard shows huge glass palaces, but no, the plays are not performed inside them.
(Apart from two of the performances of Romeo and Juliet after their site flooded this week; those did actually take place in a glasshouse. But the floodwater receded and tonight they were huddled under a little canopy outdoors, outside the glasshouse again.)
So we got settled and the play started and, actually, it was damned good. The bloke playing Prospero has just won a national award, and the rest of the cast were excellent, and we got right through almost to the end of Act 1V. Caliban and the two drunken servants were emerging from the trees - and the first heavy drops of rain fell. And within a minute it was bucketing.
And the actors, already shivering in their thin costumes, were hauled off out the rain and it was announced that there would be a ten-minute break.
Two of the production staff, in the best Wimbledon tradition, then ran out hauling a huge canvas over the set, while we sat like numpties getting wetter and wetter.
Other Half and I then had a discussion and both agreed that we should leave.
But we could not be the first to flee. It would have looked wimpish. We all sat looking sideways at each other, waiting for Someone Else to go first. And nobody did.
So we were drookit when the production guy returned to tell us to bugger off. (Adding, of course, that since over an hour of the action had been performed, we were not entitled to our money back.)
So we all squelched off through the deluge.
As we passed the Romeo and Juliet corner, it was still continuing, with the rain sliding off the flimsy modern canopy and blowing in the open sides upon the equally chilled audience.
And we're home happy. There is something heroic about attempting to perform outdoor theatre in Scotland; and it calls forth an equally heroic response from those in the audience. Either that, or we're as daft as they are. But it was a good night anyway.
