Need to brush up on your Shakespeare?
“Brush up your Shakespeare, start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare and the women you will wow.”
So states Cole Porter’s Brush Up Your Shakespeare, from the 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate.
It is the namesake of a live performance of Shakespeare, written and directed by Jim Harkness, for a one night only production.
It’s neither a play nor a revue, said Harkness. There are no costumes and no sets but there is a roster of orators who will help you brush up on your Shakespeare.
The show starts with Harkness reciting a romantic poem by Andrew Marvell to his love interest, played by Cyndy Reycraft. She spurns him because it’s not Shakespeare and in sweeps Ken Robertson sings Brush Up Your Shakespeare.
“You wouldn’t necessarily have heard it and that’s why I am doing this. I think these things aren’t being heard up here,” said Harkness. He also wanted to present something new, under the Purple Hills Arts and Heritage Society banner.
“As in a real Shakespeare play there was often comic asides to relieve the heaviness of the evening,” said Harkness. “So we have an absurd side plot running parallel to the main narrative.”
Reycraft, Robertson and other locals will join Harkness on stage for those scenes. They set up excerpts from Shakespeare’s work, mainly the history plays.
A cast of mainly local people will take the stage during the Nov. 12 production including Dan Needles, Tim Armour, Jim McPherson and Dorothy Shropshire, among others. For example, McPherson will read the Barge Speech from Antony and Cleopatra, Shropshire will read the Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It and Armour will recite the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V.
Every recital will be followed by the projection of a professional performance of the same piece, including actors such as Patrick Stewart and Peter Sellers.
“They will bring their own sensitivity to it and their own dimension to it, which might make it in fact, through their amateurishness, even better than a professional actor,” said Harkness. “Maybe the amateur might carry it off better than the professional for reasons you may never have guessed… Maybe because they bring a certain homespun sensitivity, a primitive thinking versus a polished thinking.”
Harkness said he is a student of Shakespeare but doesn’t take a highly scholarly approach to the material. It will be somewhat casual as far as stage productions go and lightly rehearsed.
“It could be raw and entertaining, but it won’t be brilliant,” said Harkness. “It’s more of an emotional thing. I am not an academic. Thank God. I am glad I don’t know too much about Shakepseare or I would make it too academic and everybody would definitely fall asleep.”
Instead of reciting Shakespeare, Needles will be talking about his father William Needles, one of Canada’s best-known Shakespearean actors. He was a member of the Stratford Festival company since it started in 1953. Over 47 seasons, he performed in more than 100 productions and also performed on Broadway before retiring from the stage in 2006. He died in January of this year.
Tickets cost $15 in advance at The Creemore Echo, Curiosity House Books, and online at www.ticketscene.ca/events/16513. Tickets cost $20 at the door.
The show is on Saturday, Nov. 12 at Station on the Green, located at 10 Caroline St. in Creemore. Doors open at 7:15 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m.
