Forced Entertainment’s series of table-top plays performed with household items is in a noteworthy tradition of storytelling that keeps Shakespeare aliveIs it possible for a jar of Roses lime marmalade to blush? I could have sworn I saw it do just that in Terry O’Connor’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet in Forced Entertainment’s total Works: Table Top Shakespeare which is playing in the Pit at the Barbican. The pot of marmalade plays Juliet beautifully. Lily James is going to have her work cut out to beat this performance when she tackles the role later this year. Romeo is played by a slim torch,while his dad is a much chunkier, heavy-duty one. Like all noteworthy casting, and these choices recount you fairly a lot about the family dynamic. The nurse is a bottle of Dettol. Lady Capulet is a half-used bottle of washing-up liquid. Theres something rather unhappy about that.
The premise for Table Top Shakespeare is simple. A member of the company retells the tale of one of the plays in about 50 minutes using only household items. The stage is a wooden table. The red velvet curtains behind it are a nod to a theatre tradition in which Shakespeare comes wrapped in hundreds of years of performance history and a noteworthy deal of genuflecting. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com