20 YEARS IN 20 WEEKS

 This week’s “Throwback Thursday” is looking back to 2013 and the “Edge of War” season which began a new era for Bard in the Botanics.

 The company started the year in a difficult position. The unprecedented bad weather experienced in 2012 had left the company with a significant financial deficit and then came more bad news. Just days after completing our run of “Snow White” – the Byre Theatre’s most successful panto ever – we heard that the venue had been forced to shut its doors. The loss of the Byre was a real blow to Scottish theatre and to Bard in the Botanics - it looked like our new Christmas tradition would be cut off before it had even begun! Thankfully, the Byre would reopen under new management the following year and panto would return to St Andrews – but more of that next week!

Meanwhile, the company embarked on a major fundraising drive in 2013 – led by a concert version of our musical “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. 19 actors and musicians (including original cast members Nicole Cooper, Beth Marshall & John P Arnold) generously donated their time and talent to rehearse and stage the concert at Oran Mor and we will be forever grateful to them for doing so. This was followed by a gala dinner, hosted by Kaye Adams. Together these sell-out events made a major contribution to securing the company’s future.

 The summer of 2013 saw us stage a season of plays – Othello, Much Ado About Nothing & Julius Caesar – all of which took place either before or after a period of conflict. Conflict was central to the action of each story too – whether the insidious war waged by Iago against his general, Othello; the “merry war” between Benedick & Beatrice (or, in this case, Bertram – more on that later!) or the personal & political conflict between Brutus, Cassius & Caesar that leads to the play’s infamous assassination.

The season opened with Gordon Barr’s production of “Othello”. As in his first production of the play back in 2007, the story was slimmed down to focus on the central characters and the company of 6 actors was led by Bard stalwarts Kirk Bage as a chilling Iago, Nicole Cooper as Desdemona & Jennifer Dick as Emilia, joined by James Ronan as Cassio, George Docherty as Brabantio / Montano and Matthew Wade in the title role. “Othello” was the company’s first – and to date, it’s only – production to be staged in full Elizabethan dress, with the majority of the beautifully detailed costumes created from scratch by costume designer, Carys Hobbs, and her assistant, Kylie Langford.

 This was followed by “Much Ado About Nothing”, again directed by Gordon Barr. In this exuberant modern dress production, Beatrice became Bertram and the play’s central romance was reinvented for a gay couple. Actually, “reinvented” is not quite the right term – as Bard in the Botanics has proven many times over the years, Shakespeare lends himself to interpretation with no significant changes required to his writing. In this instance, Benedick & Beatrice’s cutting wit, sharp banter and their reluctance to publicly admit their feelings for each other all sat just as comfortably in the mouths of Benedick & Bertram – and the production became a touching, funny & joyous celebration of two people, who just happened to be men and who were perfect for each other.

 Both “Othello” and “Much Ado About Nothing” took place on the same set. It is a testament to the incredible talent of set designer, Gillian Argo, that an Elizabethan military outpost in Cyprus and a modern-day Italian villa could both inhabit the same physical space that, in both cases, looked like it had been created specifically for that story.

Meanwhile, in the Kibble Palace, Jennifer Dick created a fast-paced thriller out of “Julius Caesar” for just 4 actors. An extraordinary quartet of performers – Paul Cunningham as Brutus, Nicole Cooper as Cassia, Kirk Bage as Mark Antony and Tim Barrow as Caesar – kept audiences on the edge of their seats throughout the finely judged, modern dress production. And while an audience of 80 might be a smaller mob than Mark Antony’s famous “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech would have originally been addressed to, the close-up, intimate nature of the Kibble Palace involved them completely in the action and created the populace of Rome through nothing more than an active, intensified relationship between performer and audience.

 A successful summer season, during which a bout of glorious weather boosted audience numbers and further secured the company’s finances, was followed by our first ever Autumn tour. 2012’s sell-out production of “Romeo and Juliet” was revived in a new physical production and toured to venues across Scotland’s Central Belt. Stephanie McGregor (Juliet), Robert Elkin (Benvolio) & Luke McConnell (Mercutio) all reprised their roles, this time joined by Ross Mann as Tybalt and Scott Fletcher as Romeo.

 The “Edge of War” had been chosen as the 2013 season title to reflect the stories being told but the idea of being on the edge of something would filter through to the company itself. The beautifully performed but quite classic Elizabethan take on “Othello” gave way to what, at the time, was a fairly radical take on “Much Ado” (reinventing two of Shakespeare’s most famous lovers as a gay couple). Similarly, Nicole Cooper’s casting as Cassia in “Julius Caesar” marked our first major cross-gendered character for some years – something the company would rectify in the years to come. Ultimately, the overwhelmingly positive response to “Much Ado” encouraged the company to take more risks with our work in the future and our enduring motto was born – “Be bold, be brave”.

So a year which had started with a slightly bleak outlook turned into one of our most successful ever and the company looked to the future with renewed confidence and vigour.

Looking back on 2013, Robert Elkin had this to say:

“Playing Bertram in Much Ado will always be a standout moment in my career. Not only was it the first real opportunity I’d had to tell what felt like MY story on stage, but it was my first experience of working on a production that seemed so timely. During the rehearsal period the UK government passed the Marriage of Same-Sex Couples Act. Suddenly our little show felt like less of a protest or an avant-garde interpretation and more like what theatre is supposed to be: telling the stories of real people, real lives, real love. Kissing Benedick to the rapturous cheers and applause of the opening night crowd will stay with me forever. Oh, and my costumes were GORGEOUS.”

 Artistic Director, Gordon Barr, echoes his thoughts:

“Much Ado became the most personal play I’d ever directed – as with Rob, it was the first time I was telling my story, as a gay man, onstage. That became something really emotional and touching for me. I think it’s a mark of how far we’ve come that, back in 2013, it felt transgressive to see a Shakespeare play build to a kiss between two men. Thankfully, and I believe in part because of our work, that no longer feels so radical or odd. But it really made us aware of how important it was to use Shakespeare to tell everyone’s stories and that remains a core principle of our work today.”

FUN FACTS:

- The 2013 season definitely featured the youngest person ever to grace Bard in the Botanics’ stage. Nicole Cooper’s daughter, Io, was in fact still in her mummy’s tummy – Nicole was three months pregnant while playing Desdemona & Cassius that year! Morning sickness & Shakespeare is definitely not an easy combination to manage!

- Nicole understandably didn’t want to disclose her pregnancy until after her 12-week scan which left the wardrobe department initially puzzled as her intricate costume for Desdemona mysteriously had to be altered after every fitting – Elizabethan corsetry was yet another hurdle for her to overcome in the early stages of her pregnancy!

- In a play focused on the tragic results for women of toxic masculinity, it is perhaps understandable that the most powerful moment in Othello for many was the quiet scene which gave space for the 2 female characters – Desdemona & Emilia – to give voice to their own experiences, with the beautiful performances of Nicole & Jennifer often reducing audiences to tears. Associate Artist, Robert Elkin, who was performing in “Much Ado” later in the season, came back night after night just to watch that scene and still cites it as one of his favourite ever Bard in the Botanics moments.

- Bard in the Botanics loves a modern-dress Shakespeare but that brings its own headaches for the costume department. While the Elizabethan characters of Othello could conceivably wear the same clothes for the entire action of the play without comment, it would have looked very strange if the characters of the modern day Much Ado had worn the same clothes for daytime, a masked ball, a wedding and a funeral! Consequently, Much Ado had one of the longest costume lists in Bard history – many of the characters had at least 5 costume changes and Robert Elkin’s Bertram was never to be seen in the same clothes twice – giving him 8 individual outfits in the one show!

- We were delighted to welcome comedy legend, Louise McCarthy, to the Much Ado company in the roles of Margaret and Dogberry. Best-known to audiences as one half of “The Dolls” and for her work on “Scot Squad”, Louise is not only a great comic but a phenomenal actor and brought both hilarity and heartbreak to her performance in Much Ado.

- Scott Fletcher took over the role of Romeo from James Rottger for our Autumn tour, but previously they had worked together on the final series of “Gary: Tank Commander” – the Scottish acting industry is a small world!

2013 COMPANY:

Stephen Arden (Choreographer – Much Ado); Gillian Argo (Set Design – Othello & Much Ado); Kirk Bage (Actor); Gordon Barr (Artistic Director); Tim Barrow (Actor); Ben Clifford (Actor); Nicole Cooper (Actor); Paul Cunningham (Actor); Jennifer Dick (Actor; Director – Julius Caesar); George Docherty (Actor); Robert Elkin (Actor); Rory Fairbairn (Actor); Scott Fletcher (Actor); Robbie Fraser (Production Manager – Romeo & Juliet); Suzie Goldberg (DSM – Romeo & Juliet); Carys Hobbs (Costume Design – Othello & Much Ado, Designer – Romeo & Juliet); Lauren Hurwood (Actor); Kylie Langford (Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor); Hayley Ingram (Actor); Mark Jeary (Actor); Ross Mann (Actor); Louise McCarthy (Actor); Luke McConnell (Actor); Stephanie McGregor (Actor); Sam Ramsay (Production Manager); James Ronan (Actor); Andrew Rothney (Actor); Pete Searle (Lighting Design – Romeo & Juliet); Marc Silberschatz (Fight Director); Matthew Wade (Actor); Vicky Wilson (DSM – Othello & Much Ado)

 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Concert” Company: Stephen Arden, John P Arnold, Darren Brownlie, Nicole Cooper, Euan Cuthbertson, George Docherty, Zoe Halliday, James Hamilton, Lucy Hutchison, Alissa Keogh, Beth Marshall, Louise McCarthy, Eilidh Trotter, John Scougall, Robert Sharpe, Alan Steele, Steven Wallace