Monday, July 13, 2015

Twelfth Night (or What You Will)

I had mentioned in a previous post that I would need to check out Repercussion Theatre's Shakespeare production in the park...and I did!
This year, the company put on Twelfth Night (or What You Will). I was recently chatting with a friend about the experience but had forgotten the name of the play. My description was, "You know, that one where a girl dresses up a a guy, and someone falls in love with her/him, but then someone else falls in love with some else, and there's a mix up and some other stuff." Pretty vague and unfortunately encompassing of a couple of Shakespeare's plays!
Anyway, the play was lovely. There were a couple songs in the play and I enjoyed the musical interludes. The last song that was sung to end the play and into the final bows sounded very familiar. Not like, it's a famous song, familiar, but like I'd heard it in another Shakespeare in the Park production. And since I think I've only really seen the Canadian Stage Company's productions in High Park, I'm narrowing it down to something that they did. So, is there a common song for Shakespeare?
As per usual, I packed a picnic dinner for this outing. It was fun. I'm really getting into this whole cheese and baguette thing. The cheese with ferns was purchased for this particular event.
Repercussion Theatre does things a little differently from the Canadian Stage Company. Instead of residing in one venue, the production moves around different parks around Montreal each night. Thus, you are able to select a night of a location that is convenient to you, or visit different parks in the city. It also means that the set and the whole she-bang needs to be easy to set up and rather portable. The set was simple, but effective. I went to the July 3rd show which was at a really large park. It was kinda cool because the entire evening there were people just walking by (because people in Montreal really love wandering and their green space...at least when the weather is nice) and stumbling across the production. There were also teams playing soccer on the fields in the background. And of course lots of people picnicking.
The company is touring until July 26th, so there's still time to catch a show! You can either find a patch of grass to sit on, bring a lawn chair (people here seem to not just bring those collapsible camping chairs, but straight up folding chairs) or even pay $5 to rent a chair (and get a seat right up front). The show is by donation (collected by cast members during intermission - I guess they don't have to bubble themselves throughout the entire show...mixing and mingling with the public doesn't throw them off).

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