1) I am in some sort of theatrical venue, be it: traditional theatre, black box, site specific, what have you.
2) I am given an allotted amount of time - be it half an hour, or a week or more - to be in the performance spaces.
3) The attending audience will have actively made a decision to come see the performance. They are here because they want to be.
The Shakespeare-in-Hospitals program includes almost none of these things.
The performance spaces include varying sizes of private or recreational hospital rooms. There is usually no access to these rooms prior to the performance. Depending on the room, the audience member(s) may be attending the performance voluntarily, or they have been approached in their own space in a private room.
So this is what makes my job as a collaborator interesting. As a theatre-maker, I have always been told to keep my audience in mind. There needs to be a high amount of awareness to ensure that what is being presented is really for the benefit of those watching as opposed to those performing.
What does this mean? In this context, it means that the people watching our Shakespeare-in-Hospitals performances are not necessarily looking for historically authentic, thoroughly dramaturged, top-quality theatre. Sometimes all a patient might be looking for is a conversation or some outside human interaction. It’s difficult, sometimes, for both our performers and our collaborators. The priority is not to show off your best Shakespeare. It is to bring Shakespeare into hospitals and let long-term patients have access to the arts.
Here’s where I started to raise questions. How much time do we spend on the dramaturgy of each scene? How much effort? Will it make a difference?
I’m a firm believer that we should always be aiming to raise the standards of audience understanding. We shouldn’t water down the complexity or intensity of specific moments out of fear that our audience won’t on board. Audiences are often much more capable than we give them credit for. This, of course, does not mean that we ignore accessibility. Especially with text like Shakespeare, it has been equally important for us to make sure we do not neglect making the text accessible in favour of staying true to the original meaning.
I won’t pretend that I’ve had an easy time figuring out where to keep pushing for more intellectual depth and where to just give the audience a nice picture to look at. It is a continual exploration and struggle, and certainly what is the most fascinating part of working with this collective. The ensemble members of the Spur-of-the-Moment Shakespeare Collective this year are a particularly generous group. (Because they all deserve a shout-out, the wonderful: Clare Blackwood, Sara Jackson, Cameron Lapp, Matthew Lawrence, Michael Man) It has been such a pleasure to be working with them and continuing to make new discoveries.
Even now, I am still having realisations about concepts we need to address in each of the scenes. I think the conclusion I have come to for the moment is this: aim to do the best work, but be prepared to abandon it completely.
And sometimes it is so rewarding to abandon it all and just be in the room with another person.
To learn more about the Shakespeare-In-Hospitals Project, visit our indiegogo page at:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shakespeare-in-hospitals-project--2/x/3702092