INTERVIEW: Little Shakespeare Festival is back for round #3
Photo: Jianzi Colon Soto and Jefferson Reardon star in a 2019 production of Lady Capulet, which will be presented at this year’s Little Shakespeare Festival. Photo courtesy of Emily Hewitt / Provided by Emily Owens PR with permission.
Summer and Shakespeare go so well together. When the sun dips below the horizon during the warmer months, the Bard’s words and storylines light up stages, both indoors and outdoors, around the world. For theatergoers looking for a slightly different Shakespearean experience, there’s the Little Shakespeare Festival, which kicks off its third year of programming tonight, Aug. 3, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The festival, programmed by FRIGID New York and taking place at UNDER St. Mark’s, continues until Aug. 19 and features a number of productions that are inspired by Shakespeare’s works. This is less about traditional productions of Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and more about creative connections that have been developed by artists and theater companies — with some of these creations pushing back on the Shakespearean canon and challenging its problematic texts.
Conor D. Mullen is the curator of the festival, which this year will feature an improvised performance called As You Will (created by Mullen, David Brummer and George Hider) and Barefoot Shakespeare Company’s Lady Capulet, a piece that explores the origins of the feud between the Capulets and Montagues, the warring families in Romeo and Juliet. Other highlights include Wheel of Fortune by Djingo Productions, which places Shakespeare’s story in the digital age, and a Shakespearean take on the cult classic film The Room, produced by C.A.G.E. Theatre Company.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Mullen about this year’s fest. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What sets the Little Shakespeare Festival apart from other Shakespearean festivals?
When we think about Shakespeare we usually start by thinking about how popular he was, how he drew crowds from all over London, how he performed for royalty, and that comparison invites this idea that Shakespeare was the Broadway of his time — extravagant, grand and popular. While I don’t disagree that Shakespeare was any of those things, it’s not the whole story of Shakespeare’s life as a working playwright. In many ways, Shakespeare has a lot in common with the scrappy and avant-garde theatre that happens in back rooms and basements of off-off-Broadway.
Shakespeare’s costumes were donations from wealthy patrons, the Elizabethan equivalent of thrifting. His rehearsal process was painfully truncated, and he played roles in his own productions. His tickets were a penny (less than $10 in today’s money); we’re not talking about Broadway prices here! That’s what the Little Shakespeare Festival is about. It’s a chance for us to remember that Shakespeare doesn’t just belong in gigantic amphitheaters; he also belongs in the most intimate of venues as well. In fact, there are ways that Shakespeare can be explored in those small spaces that simply aren’t possible anywhere else. The Little Shakespeare Festival is a place for that to happen, and I think this year’s lineup shows just how many ways his work can be transformed.
What are some highlights you’re looking forward to this year?
This year we’re celebrating the non-male characters in Shakespeare, bringing these characters in Shakespeare’s plays from the sidelines into the spotlight and bending gender till it breaks. I want to shout out two pieces this year that I know are going to be a laugh riot, and both have casts that are 100% women and non-binary performers.
The first is The ROOM of Falsehood, presented by C.A.G.E. Theatre Company, which is a Shakespearean reimagining of the cult classic “worst movie ever made” The Room directed by Tommy Wiseau. The play transforms the overly self-indulgent, misogynistic film into one of the funniest Shakespearean tragedies you can imagine while preserving all the classic moments from the original (yes, there will even be a football).
The second is Shrew You!, presented by Hamlet Isn’t Dead, which is a complete rewrite of Taming of the Shrew, one of Shakespeare’s most problematic “problem plays.” They’re calling it “a comedic, no boys allowed, rewrite of Shakespeare’s most sexist work,” and it promises to be a bombastic, irreverent experience.
Beyond those two, I’d just highlight that our festival lineup is pretty small with just six productions making up the festival this year (it’s not called the Little Shakespeare Festival for nothing). That means there is no filler in this festival; everything we picked, we picked because we were excited about it. Go check out the rest of the lineup at frigid.nyc/festivals/shakesfest because I’m genuinely excited about everything we’re presenting this year, and I think any Shakespeare fan will be, too.
Do you feel it’s important to interrogate Shakespeare and his legacy, and not simply accept his work as canon?
This is such an interesting question because I would argue that if we accept Shakespeare’s work as canon, as essential and important, we must then interrogate it. Sometimes when I’m discussing outdated ideas in Shakespeare (usually related to sexism, racism or antisemitism) with other Bard-loving artists, somebody will get defensive, as though the implication is that if I think a piece of Shakespeare’s writing is problematic then I must also think Shakespeare is bad, or that by critiquing him my love for Shakespeare is less. But I don’t see it that way at all; in fact, I think being critical of Shakespeare makes his work even more compelling.
Since women are at the forefront of the festival this year, I’ll give an example related to that. Shakespeare has some really problematic portrayals of women, not the least of which is how Katherine is treated in Taming of the Shrew. She’s literally starved into obedience by her “suitor,” and the play ends with her in delicate supplication. And this play is a comedy. But he also wrote characters like Portia (Merchant of Venice) and Rosalind (As You Like It) who I would argue stand the test of time as fantastic and multidimensional women who have agency and power in their stories. And the fact that Shakespeare wrote all this is fascinating. Shakespeare isn’t just an outdated misogynist or a playwright ahead of his time; he’s both, and he’s neither. Looking at these simple facts tells us things about how his world viewed women, and it tells us things about how our world views women today. To me this is why Shakespeare belongs in the essential canon, and also why we must continuously interrogate and reevaluate what he wrote as our own world transforms.
There’s a lot of bad news out there about theater funding, especially for smaller companies. Has that impacted the Little ShakespeareFestival?
Yes, I’m sure it has but in ways that are hard for me to see. One of the great tragedies of the COVID-19 pandemic and the struggle to get ticket sales back to pre-pandemic levels is those companies who quietly folded without much fanfare. For me with the Little Shakespeare Festival, and for FRIGID New York, the result is we don’t get an application from them, e don’t bring their show to the stage, we don’t hear the story they had to tell. The Little Shakespeare Festival is lucky in that we have a fantastic lineup, and the small size of the festival means we’re able to do a lot with a little. But indie theatre is still struggling to have as many voices heard as possible. All this is to say that the Little ShakespeareFestival is impacted by these financial hardships, but primarily in the indirect ways all of NYC indie theatre is.
Will there be a fourth-annual festival next year?
I hate to count my chickens before they hatched, but barring any unforeseen calamity, we absolutely will be continuing the festival next year. The work I’ve seen already from the various festival companies in rehearsal shows me that we have a wealth of talent and some incredible stories to tell. I’m already excited to do it all again next year.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Little Shakespeare Festival runs Aug. 3-19 at UNDER St. Mark’s in New York City. FRIGID New York presents the festival, which is curated by Conor D. Mullen. Click here for more information and tickets.
