Shakespeare by the Lakes. Directed by Duncan Driver and Lexi
Sekuless. Tuggeranong
Town Park on February 14 and 15, Glebe Park in Civic on February 16, QEII Park
in Queanbeyan on February 17. 6.30pm.
Out
door theatre can be a fraught business. In 1961 as a teenage Gertrude on the
steps of the War Memorial in Sydney I found myself lunging for a mike on a
stand every time I had a line. Things weren’t much better in 1980 at Leeds
University doing Eurydice in an outdoor Antigone, although I think the
courtyard acoustics meant we could do without mikes. (And the skinheads who
haunted the dress rehearsal…)
From
what I saw down at Tuggeranong technology has come a long way and except for
the occasional pop and crackle the unobtrusive head mikes so long used by
musical theatre supported the performance in a positive way in an flat outdoor
venue that shows how much has been forgotten about ancient Greek theatre acoustics.
(Go to Epidaurus and sit up the back while the guide talks quietly down on the
performance area…)
Shakespeare
by the Lakes largely got the measure of the problems, and came up with a genially
intelligent version of Much Ado About Nothing. A largish audience sat on the
grass or on chairs at the back and was happy to have their space invaded by the
odd cast member. especially since such invasions were gentle and unforced and
very much part of the play.
Directors
Lexi Sekuless and Duncan Driver headed the cast as Beatrice and Benedict making
the most of the duo’s avoidance of what everyone else could see about their
relationship. The Watch needed more of a sense of being a group and Helen
McFarlane’s Dogberry could have used some toning down so that the full humour
of the malapropisms came through. But she made a most enjoyably villainous Don
John.
Hero
can be played as a bit of a Muriel and Jo Richards went down this path with
some energy. It’s always a wonder why she finally marries a man like Claudio Izaac Beach) who is so ready to jump to
the wrong conclusion. Beach conveyed an alarming youthful immaturity. But the
play does not linger on their relationship.
Support
from the rest of the cast was relaxed and focussed, with the play’s songs and
some music for ambience gently done by musician Sunny Amoreena and her band and
the whole thing finished up quite rightly with a jig. And if the Thursday night
Tuggeranong crowd is anything to go by there’s a real appetite for more such
events.
Alanna Maclean
