Alexandar Vlahos will star in Romeo and Juliet
It is, perhaps, not solely the continued success of London’s Globe that has inspired international theatre producer James Cundall to create a festival of Shakespeare’s works in York. Certainly, open air Shakespeare performances take place all over the country during the summer months.
What is different about Lunchbox Theatrical Productions’ quartet of Shakespeare classics is that they will be performed within a specially designed and constructed “pop-up” theatre, structured to emulate the 13-sided auditoria in which the playwright and his peers would have performed, and which the Globe re-creates in permanent form on London’s South Bank.
Predominantly made out of scaffolding with wooden cladding, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre will be constructed in a car park next to York’s Clifford’s Tower. With three tiers of seating and a courtyard standing area for “groundlings”, the venue promises to hold 950 audiencegoers, each of which will be no more than 15 metres from the stage.
The venue, which begins construction at the end of May for a season which commences on 25 June, will play host to four of Shakespeare’s most well-known productions: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III and Romeo and Juliet.
The cast will be split into two companies, each performing two of the plays in repertory. West End director Lindsay Posner will take charge of Romeo and Juliet, with actors Alexandar Vlahos and Alexandra Dowling as the titular lovers, and Richard III, with Dyfan Dwyfor as the king.
The other company will be led by York Theatre Royal’s Damian Cruden (The Railway Children), who will direct Macbeth, and Juliet Forster, who will direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Around the theatre, which will be playing host to two performances a day for seven days a week during its season, will be “Shakespeare’s Village”, a collection of street food and drink venues with live entertainment emulating the spirit of “wagon players”, troupes of actors who would perform plays atop the carts they would use to tour towns and villages.
But despite the touristy nature of its external attractions, Posner is adamant that the productions inside the theatre will not be what he deems “heritage theatre”. Instead, he says, they will be reinterpreted to reflect contemporary concerns, just as Shakespeare’s works have in the centuries since their creation.
While there are no musicals in the Rose’s season, there will be live music. Composers Olly Fox and Christopher Madin will be scoring two plays apiece, and the live musicians will “move around the space”, promises Posner.
The project, which has been privately financed, has attracted sponsorship from a variety of tourist-focussed companies, from York’s Grand Hotel to Arriva’s Grand Central trains. It is also being backed by the local tourist organisation, Welcome to Yorkshire, whose CEO Gary Verity points out that tourism employs 250,000 people in the county each year, culminating in business worth £8 billion.
As a form of outreach, the theatre has dedicated nine mornings to special performances for schools, with reduced price tickets. In addition, a Rose Bursary Scheme has been established to allow schools with limited resources to apply for free tickets.
The season starts from June 25, with performances continuing until Sunday, 2 September.
Scott Matthewman
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