shakespeare in springtime

How do you get through a play with nearly 4,000 lines of script and requires just under double the amount of actors that you have?

“It’s a long play. We did a play review, we went line by line and chose what lines to keep and what we could cut,” Director Jane Burk said of the Shakespeare in Springtime debut production. “We cut a lot. One act has 13 scenes, act four has 15 or 16 scenes. We had to pick and choose what scenes to cut or combine.”

Not the glamorous side of theater, perhaps, but important all the same. Reviewing words to be spoken — William Shakespeare’s words, no less — is nothing to dismiss as an idle task. Burk has been trading off the director’s role for the Batavia Players Shakespeare in Springtime series every other year, and this time it's her turn.

The play is “Antony and Cleopatra,” the second longest of Shakespeare’s works, and set in late B.C. Considered part comedy, romance, and tragedy, it hits the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Batavia City Centre’s concourse.

Major characters are, of course, Mark Antony, a Roman general and one of the three joint leaders known as triumvirs who rule the Roman Republic after the assassination of Julius Caesar; Octavius Caesar, adopted son of Julius; Lepidus; Cleopatra, queen of Egypt who follows six Cleopatras before her; and Sextus Pompey, a rebel against the triumvirate and son of the late Pompey.

Mark Antony—one of the triumvirs of the Roman Republic, along with Octavius and Lepidus—has neglected his soldierly duties after being beguiled by Egypt's Queen, Cleopatra. He ignores Rome's domestic problems, including the fact that his third wife, Fulvia, rebelled against Octavius and then died.

Octavius calls Antony back to Rome from Alexandria to help him fight against Sextus Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas, three notorious pirates of the Mediterranean. At Alexandria, Cleopatra begs Antony not to go, and though he repeatedly affirms his deep passionate love for her, he eventually leaves.

The triumvirs meet in Rome, where Antony and Octavius put to rest, for now, their disagreements. Octavius' general, Agrippa, suggests that Antony should marry Octavius's sister, Octavia, in order to cement the friendly bond between the two men. Antony accepts. Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus, though, knows that Octavia can never satisfy him after Cleopatra. In a famous passage, he describes Cleopatra's charms: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety: other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies."

Burk saw a stage production a “very, very, very long time ago,” she said and has gotten up to speed on the show and how she has wanted to put her own twist on it.

“So many things happened, basically, all within a relatively short time, that brought about the downfall of all of these people. And it was a tragedy, with the one exception of Octavius Caesar, who survived. There were military battles, there were sea battles that occurred in northern Egypt, in the Roman area of Italy, and throughout the area of the Eastern Mediterranean. I mean, historically, this was a very volatile period of time. Shakespeare was writing a play, so he made mention of many of these different activities that were happening and how they were reflected in the time period. But his main focus, because he was a playwright, was the actual personal relationship between Mark Antony and the other two members of the triumvirate,” Burk said. “And then, on the other hand, between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who was a ruler and a queen in her own right. She lived from approximately 51 BC until she died by suicide in 30 BC. Mark Antony, he was a little bit older than her, his birth date was somewhere around the mid-80s, 82 or 83 BC. But his death was also by suicide in 30 BC, which was technically the end of the issue of the Roman dynasty, and of the Egyptian dynasty and how they related to each other, militarily and politically.

“Realistically, you could almost point the finger at what happened between Mark Antony and Cleopatra and their downfall. And what happened to the countries where they lived in that time period,” she said. “And the military issues that arose. That all played into that, that final thing of being left with one specific Emperor, who was Augustus Caesar, and the head of the Roman Empire.”

One-half of the City Centre stage will be dressed in traditional B.C. scenery and costuming and dialogue, while the other half will sport a contemporary look, she said. While the historic views may not seem relevant today, might they be?

“And so there's a juxtaposition between how the two who are contemporary and are so not contemporary, are they contemporary? Are things that happened in the long ago time of Egypt, are they still relevant today? And those that have some impact on what is happening in the Roman place, and vice versa?” she said.

All of the action is on stage, and that means all of the action — actors and audience. There is seating for 60. Placing spectators around the stage at ground level with a split stage of time periods just would not have worked, Burk said.

And “lighting is very important.”

“It’s going up on one side while going down on the other,” she said. “It’s a truly amazing cast, I could not be more proud of them. I was so relieved to have them try out. We have an extraordinarily talented cast.”

The show is 2 1/2 hours, plus intermission, and debuts at 7:30 p.m. Friday and continues at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Main St. 56 Theater, Batavia City Centre. Enter through the purple door next to Batavia Family Dental.

Tickets are $16 for adults and $14 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets, go HERE. 

Top Photo, left to right, Cynthia Nelson as Caesar, Shaun Coburn as Dollabella, James Barcomb as Lepidus and Jacqueline Morrison as Pompey; Erin Stamp as Menas and Elijah Van Epps as Enobarbus; Erin Stamp as Menas, Jacqueline Morrison as Pompey, Steve Coburn as Marc Antony, Shaun Coburn as Dollabella, Cynthia Nelson as Caesar, James Barcomb as Lepidus and Elijah Van Epps as Enobarbus; Steve Coburn as Marc Antony and Jaqueline Morrison as Pompey; and Kendra Morrison as Alexis, Emily Crawford as Cleopatra, Shellene Bailey as Charmian and Patrick Burk as Mardian. Photos by Howard Owens.

Back in the spring of 2003, an ambitious group of local thespians decided to take a risk by boldly staging in Genesee County what no local troupe had staged here before: Shakespeare. Nine years later, "Shakespeare in Springtime" is thriving. This weekend the group is celebrating its 10th springtime with a repeat production of its first show, "A Midsummer Night’s Dream."

“Shakespeare wrote so many plays, and we wanted to choose something familiar that we could do justice to,” Director E. Jane Burk says of the group’s original decision to perform the show nine years ago. “It was very well-received. It showed us that there really are some people out there who are willing to come see Shakespeare.”

The characters, comedy, and iambic pentameter may be the same as it was a decade ago, but make no mistake — this show is “entirely different” and definitely “not a repeat of last time.” Whereas the pioneer effort took place in a Midwestern 1950s carnival, this time around the show has a San Francisco setting circa the 1960s. The traditional fairy characters have been changed to hippies, demonstrating, Burk explains, “the difference between establishment and anti-establishment.”

Cast members agree that despite the large gap in time periods, the play translates easily from the intended Shakespearean setting to the more contemporary backdrop.

“The characters are universal,” says Malloryann Flanagan, who has the role of Puck. “A lot of the themes are still prevalent in society and are still relevant today.”

Flanagan and her sister, Caryn Burk, are the only two cast members who also appeared in the original production. But although the majority of the ensemble did not take part in the first “Shakespeare in Springtime” show, many of them have been seen in at least one other production put on by the group. One such actor is Paul Judkins, who has the part of Egeus.

“It’s always a challenge,” says Judkins, who cites his favorite previous Shakespearean role as the title character in "Julius Caesar." “You can’t use your natural language — you have to find the meaning behind the words. At first it was mystifying.”

Derrick Pechie, who has the role of Oberon, the fairy king, agrees that understanding the language gets easier with time:

“My first lead role in a Shakespeare play was in 'Richard III' two years ago. I did not know what I was saying. But now I can read the script and right away I know what it’s talking about.”

The difficult language and seemingly hidden meanings are exactly what makes Shakespeare so attractive to cast member Shellene Bailey, however.

“The language is sneaky,” she declares. “It’s very in-depth and very funny. There are lots of jokes and innuendos. It's very beautiful.” 

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. March 22-24 and at 2 p.m. March 25 at the Harvester 56 Theater (located at 56 Harvester Ave. in Batavia). There will also be a dinner theater performance at Terry Hills on the 31st.  

Televisions and cameras surround the action, and music thumps out of the huge speakers. People saunter by in black leather and chains, brandishing signs and video cameras. Has Judas Priest come to town? No, it's the Batavia Players' 'Shakespeare in Springtime' production of Richard III this weekend at Batavia High School. 

"It's very contemporary," says director Jane Burk. "The show goes to a very dark place, and I wanted to take advantage of that."

The show is very dark, indeed. It follows Richard, the younger brother of King Edward IV of England, and his plot to become king -- even if it means killing whoever gets in his way. 

"The play is called 'The Tragedy of Richard III' but it is not actually a true Shakespeare tragedy," Burk explains. "It was part of a series he wrote about that specific time period in English history. It's a historical play."

"[Richard III is] pretty much a guy who's really upset because he's deformed physically, and his family has rejected him," says Anthony Giambrone of his title role, which has the second-largest number of lines of any Shakespearean character. "He basically wants to become king to make people love him."

Aside from the setting and costumes, there is another unexpected twist to the show: the performance takes place behind the curtains, in the center of a ring of chairs on stage. The audience members will be sitting in these chairs, only feet away from the action, mimicking the feel of a black-box theater.

"The Batavia Players are in the process of building a black-box theater, and we had originally hoped that this would be the first show performed there," says Burk. "So when we began rehearsals, we blocked everything in this style. Once we found out that we were going to be performing here at Batavia High instead, we decided we still wanted to keep the intimacy of a black box and not just do it straight out to the audience."

"I think it's really, really cool," says Giambrone, who has previously performed in a black-box setup. "But it's a lot harder because you have the people right there in front of you, watching you really closely." 

"It's the first show I've done like this, so it's been a challenge," says Rachel Oshlag, who has the role of Queen Elizabeth. 

Although Oshlag may be inexperienced when it comes to the setup of the stage, she is no stranger to the stage itself. This is her seventh Shakespeare show, and her twenty-first year of doing theater. 

"It becomes easier each year," she says of performing Shakespeare, "but each show is its own challenge. You have to be careful how you say the lines and make it sound as close to (real) people speaking as possible." 

"Shakespeare is poetry. There's a rhythm to it that helps a lot," says Jesse Conklin, who plays Buckingham, one of Richard's right-hand men. This is Conklin's fifth 'Shakespeare in Springtime' production.

James Earl, an Elba High School senior portraying Lord William Hastings, says that for him, the highlight of the show hasn't been the costumes or the dialogue. 

"The best part about it is that I get beheaded, and then I come on carrying my head later.  The head is a cabbage in a bag," laughs Earl. "It's a lot of fun."

Performances of Richard III are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at BHS.  Tickets can be purchased online at www.bataviaplayers.org or at the door, and are $10 general admission and $8 for students and seniors.