By: Ashton Newton Entertainment Editor
Western students are hitting the stage once again with the upcoming performances of Ken Ludwig’s “Shakespeare in Hollywood”.
Directed by Western’s Ted deChatelet, “Shakespeare in Hollywood” features a cast of Western students who have been hard at work rehearsing for the play.
“‘Shakespeare in Hollywood’ is based around ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare. Oberyn and Puck, the two fairies in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ come to Hollywood and find themselves in Hollywood by accident and have a bunch of hijinks and run around Hollywood making a bunch of mayhem” said Hunter Atkin, sophomore Bachelor of Fine Arts acti
ng major and cast member.
“It’s a fictional story about the making of the film ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ back in the 1930s, it’s a real film” added John Bryant, sophomore Bachelor of Fine Arts theatre major and cast member.
Much like Western theatre’s previous production “All in the Timing,” “Shakespeare in Hollywood” is a comedy focused on bringing laughs and lightheartedness to campus.
“The play’s farcical, which pretty much just means slapstick, ridiculous comedy, way over the top acting, very heightened. It’s hilarious” said Atkin.
“With this being a comedy, we get to lighten the mood with the 1930s setting. It makes it easy to go with the setting. Some of the costumes and props we use coincide with it being in the 1930s, so it is harder than if the play was in modern day, but it didn’t make it difficult and we were still able to have fun with it” added Bryant.
Reflecting on being in the cast, Atkin said, “My favorite part of being in the cast is that Ted, the director, pretty much let the cast decide what’s happening in the play. He let us do whatever we want. He gave us the scripts, gave us the parts and just let us go, so he had an image in his head, but we really just threw out ideas and just did stuff and he just kept it in and kept integrating all of our ideas together.”
“Ted’s a really good director. A lot of directors will just say ‘this is what I want, do it this way,’ but what Ted does with his actors is he will give suggestions, but he’ll also trust his actors and see what they will bring to the table. It’s a nice mix of what we can bring and if something doesn’t work, he can fine tune it” said Bryant.
While working on “Shakespeare in Hollywood,” the cast had a great time working together has cast members and as friends. Asked separately about a story that stuck out during rehearsals, Atkin and Bryant reflected on the same event.
“Our director, Ted, was hanging out and we were rehearsing a bit where one of the characters comes on with a wine glass and gives it to another character very nonchalantly, because he’s the big boss man. We did it a few times and Ted was worried that we were going to drop the wine glass, so he comes up and takes it from one of the characters and asks our stage manager if it was plastic and drops it on the ground, the wine glass shattered and we had to take five minutes to clean it up. It was hilarious” said Atkin.
“Everybody just bust out laughing, it was really funny. We haven’t gotten to a stressful point overall where we’re too stressed about the play or things are tense. It feels really chill throughout because we’re working on such a fun show” added Bryant.
In the end, “Shakespeare in Hollywood” is a fun, audience pleasing comedy.
“Overall, I hope this is a show audiences get to enjoy. It’s a farce, it’s a chance to kick back and have a laugh. I hope it’s an opportunity for students and faculty of Western who may have busy lives, so I hope it’s a chance to leave this world and get immersed in this. Not for our sake, but to give everyone a break from the stresses of life” said Bryant.
“Shakespeare in Hollywood” runs in Rice Auditorium from March 2-4 and 8-11 at 7:30 p.m. with March 5 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $14, $10 for seniors and $8 for Western students.
Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu
