AN age-old love story flares into light through a funky production coming in from North America. New York’s Forestburgh Theatre Arts Center allies with our own Bottom Dog Theatre Company for its first international collaboration, Romeo and Juliet, to platform a local staging and regional tour. Naturally, Bottom Dog’s home Loft Venue at Locke Bar will host the show in Limerick next week on Wednesday January 19, Friday 21 and Saturday 22 at 7.30pm.
Kilmallock’s Friar’s Gate has Shakespeare’s lovers for the night on Thursday January 21, 8pm and Bottom Dog secured further dates in Tipperary, Kilkenny and Galway for the Forestburgh production.
Producer Liam O’Brien has brokered a deal with these regional venues to co-operate on costs. Still, it’s back to Limerick as homebase each night for “this classic tale of star-crossed lovers condensed into a fast and furious 80 minutes with six American actors playing multiple roles. In an attempt to make Shakespeare more accessible to modern audiences, the play has been infused with an edgy, emo-style* roughness softened by Elizabethan touches and some of the play’s famous soliloquies set to punk music”.
Composer Kyle Norris created a contemporary score with original music; costumer David Withrow takes the starch out of courtly robes. Sarah Norris directs.
Forestburgh Theatre Arts Center is located in the Catskills of New York and at least half the cast of this production trained with actor/ singer/ director Liam O’Brien in summer of 2010 at Steppenwolf Theatre in California.
“Steppenwolf was set up by actors Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise in Chicago, actors who were committed to staying there and originiating theatre for the area as opposed to migrating to California or New York. Throughout the years it has developed into one of the world’s most prolific theatre companies with actors such as John Mahony and John Malokovich”.
O’Brien sees Bottom Dog as fostering a similar strategy, bringing theatre to and creating shows we would otherwise never see outside Dublin or London. Describing the levers to get Romeo and Juliet over here as fundraising and “personal endeavour”, his wish is that Bottom Dog might do much the same – root world class theatre in the community for all.
Book for January 19, 21, 22 on 085-2085737.
* emo-style: US slang for a dark, emotional, contemporary rock twist.
