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Troupe takes the classics outdoors | The Chronicle Herald
2013-08-27 11:48 AM
Troupe takes the classics outdoors
July 15, 2013 - 5:14pm ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER
Two Planks and a Passion offers spellbinding productions of The Iliad, As You Like It
Two Planks and a Passion Theatre presents Shakespeare's As You Like It outdoors at 6 p.m. at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts,
near Canning, along with the Fireside Iliad at 9:30 p.m. Company members include, from left, Jamie Konchak, Jeff Schwager and
Alexis Milligan.
Ken Schwartz is a wizard in producing outdoor theatre.
The artistic director of Two Planks and a Passion Theatre casts a spell with an hour-long retelling of The Iliad around a blazing fire
under ever-darkening skies.
The Iliad By Fire, running to Aug. 17 at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, near Canning, is pure magic.
An audience of 65 sits on benches and bleachers while actors use drumsticks, the power of their voices and firelight alone to tell an
ancient, brutal tale of conflict at the 10-year point in the Trojan War.
It is remarkable to become locked in a story that is 2,700 years old.
The Iliad By Fire, at 9:30 p.m., is preceded at 6 p.m. by the 22-year-old company’s production of its first Shakespeare, the over-400year-old As You Like It, a wonderfully civilized celebration of transformation through pain and love.
This playful romantic comedy, set in a forest and starring Alexis Milligan as the witty, love-struck Rosalind, is sunny by nature. It is a
wonderful contrast in mood and light to The Iliad, a thematically dark story told in the black of night. The birdsong of As You Like It
shifts to smoke and sparks, bugs and the odd mouse or bat, the creatures of the night.
The contrasting plays can be seen separately and not as a marathon of theatre, but the experience of seeing both is highly rewarding.
As You Like It is a beautifully articulate and funny production with a strong cast dressed in Gary Markle’s sumptuous costumes
inspired by the Russian aristocracy. Rosalind wears a frilly white blouse, pearls, a straw hat with roses and a pink skirt.
Schwartz highlights the comedy and the desperation of the young lovers. When Milligan’s Rosalind first sees Michael McPhee’s
handsome and adorably confused Orlando, her gaze and flustered nature signal that love is a serious business.
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Troupe takes the classics outdoors | The Chronicle Herald
2013-08-27 11:48 AM
Banished from her uncle’s court, along with her cousin Celia, she dresses up as a shepherd boy and teases and tests Orlando, also
exiled to the forest.
Milligan’s charming Rosalind, who can spin words as rapidly as fruit flies procreate, is a role model for young women taking control of
their own lives. Jamie Konchak sparkles as the more traditional Celia, so it is a wonderful pairing of girlfriends wherever these two are
on the grassy stage.
Burgandy Code is an unusual, gender-bending Jacques, the famous melancholic character responsible for the “All the world’s a
stage” speech. She has a moustache, slicked-down hair, a large peasant’s hat and a cigar for a kind of Spanish-flavoured narcissist
who erupts into cold laughter at odd times. This is an entertaining and surprising portrait.
Jeff Schwager is wonderful as the fool, Touchstone, an urban man brought out of the court and into the forest with Rosalind and Celia.
The scene in which he threatens a young swain while stroking a child’s teddy bear is a highlight.
Ryan Rogerson punches up the foreign wrestler and leads the original music, written by Allen Cole. Also memorable are Graham
Percy as the duke and a bumbling priest, Daniel Lillford as the old servant and an old Scottish shepherd, Hilary Adams as Phebe and
Chris O’Neill as Touchstone’s unusual country rube of a lover, Audrey.
It is amazing that these actors, after spilling out such a torrent of witty, fast-paced language can reorient within an hour and work
again as a tightly knit ensemble for The Iliad.
Adapted by Schwartz with lots of fire references, The Iliad is carefully choreographed and told chorally as the actors speak lines by
turn and then voice as a group for whispers, repeated phrases and the moans of wounded men.
The narrative of a propulsive iambic pentameter focuses on the conflict within the Argive army between Agamemnon and Achilles
over two young women. While the two men rage, the Trojans and their mighty warrior Hector threaten to defeat the Argives.
Percy’s take on Zeus is wonderful. He plays him as a whimsical old man gleeful at the sport of human conflict. Code, with her stirring,
electric voice, is his pleading daughter and Achilles’s mother.
This story of raw human emotions celebrates mighty warriors in battle, but also powerfully expresses the cost of pride, the
vulnerability of men to the gods and the endless pain of war. Priam (Lillford), Achilles (McPhee), Briseis (Adams) and other characters
are tormented by their losses. As ancient and primal as The Iliad is, it puts you in mind of many battles past and present.
The Iliad ends too soon with an invitation to roast marshmallows and a magical “pathway of fire,” as Schwartz called it, of lit torches
guiding the audience out of the field and back into the 21st century.
For different showtimes (the two shows aren’t always on the same nights) and Halifax shuttle dates, go to www.twoplanks.ca
(http://www.twoplanks.ca). Tickets are regularly $28.75 for As You Like It and $20.70 for The Iliad By Fire, with numerous options.
Ab o ut the Autho r »
ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER
E-Mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @CH_ElissaB
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