Bards and buffoons on the beach

Bard is the closest thing we’ll ever get to Shakespeare in Vancouver

By Jay Schreiber, Arts Editor

Kitsilano beach yearly for a celebration

of Billy Shakespeare’s plays. This year
was no different, and with record-meeting
attendance and several plays to choose from,
Bard on the Beach is consistently a culturing
night of pleasure.

Christopher Gaze, artistic director,
actor and creator of the Bard has failed as
an actor in England, or at least that’s his
reason for moving to Vancouver and starting
this organization. Starting in 1990 with
a performance of A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the programme has become bigger,
better and more inclusive. Now, after 20
years and hundreds of performances, Gaze
can finally add success to his resume.

In addition to nightly performances,
“Billy’s Beach Party” also offers day
camps for children who learn and perform
Shakespearian plays as well as receive
coaching from veteran actors. The
organization also caters to promoting the
arts and specifically local playwrights,

fF 0,000 Vancouverites make their way to

performers and people in the industry. For
example, on the night I was there, $5 from
each ticket sold went to support out of work
actors in the Vancouver area.

This year’s line up contained four of
Shakespeare’s plays. The comedies were
All’s Well that Ends Well, and Comedy of
Errors, two of Shakespeare’s lighter scripts.
Drama was to be found as well at the festival
in Richard I] and the tragedy Othello. Two
tents set the stage in the evening, a 300-
person main stage and an intimate 125-
person studio theatre.

This year’s headliner Comedy of
Errors is a wonderful play of misconception
amongst twins and integrated lives. If you
were in Grade 9 English, you should know
the gist of this one, so I won’t waste ink
boring you with storylines. On a whole, the
play vas fantastic, yet somewhere along the
line I could swear Shakespeare vacationed in
Hollywood...

The audio was quite prevalent with
constant slapstick reminders from the
sound guy and the ideology of “assisted”
performances was picked up along the way.

Rehearsed improv was added for comedic
effect and audience involvement is to be
expected. It’s hard to get 10 men dressed in
tights reciting poetry on stage and not expect
to get a gaggle of gay comments from the
audience; those too were at a premium.

Pop culture references went so far as
to include the soundtrack from The Twilight
Zone, and even two musical numbers written
by The Doors. In the ‘60s the Doors (a.k.a.
Jim Morrison) protested the use of their
music in commercials, so every time the
words “come on baby light my fire” are
uttered in a non-Doors setting, it’s enough to
make my stomach cringe.

The biggest complaint about this year’s
festival was the crowd at the event. For
the love of god, would somebody please
inform Vancouverites on how to behave at a
theatrical performance? It is not okay to talk
and eat obnoxiously during the performance.
It is not okay to take pictures and answer cell
phones while paying attention to the stage
show.

I bite my thumb at audience members
who were getting up and walking around

during the show and didn’t even know when
the right time was to applaud was. I felt so
bad for the actors that after the show I went
to seek them out just to apologize on the
crowd’s behalf. Shakespeare himself had

a brief cameo on stage and that managed

to shut people up for a few minutes before
continuing to play games on their iPhones.

In years past, the performances have
been more geared toward the classic
Shakespeare with little variation from the
ones we all suffered through in high school.
However, the last decade has shifted gears
and made the plays more crowd friendly,
and the audience more casual. I suppose
blending artistic mediums such as 16"
century literature and 1960s stoner music
isn’t the worst thing in the world, but people
come for Shakespeare not a psychedelic
freak out.

Shakespeare is still kickin’, there’s no
doubt about that. Catch Bard before the end
of September before it goes away until next
summer.

 

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