COMPLETE WORKS: TABLE TOP SHAKESPEARE EDUCATION PACK

COMPLETE WORKS: TABLE TOP SHAKESPEARE EDUCATION PACK

ABOUT FORCED ENTERTAINMENT Who are Forced Entertainment? Forced Entertainment are (above - left to right): Claire Marshall (performer), Terry O Connor (performer), Robin Arthur (performer), Tim Etchells (Artistic Director & performer), Cathy Naden (performer) and Richard Lowdon (designer & performer). What are Forced Entertainment? Forced Entertainment are a group of six artists who make work in theatre and performance and tour to audiences all around the world. The work explores and challenges what theatre and performance can be and what it can mean in contemporary life, always pushing and often breaking the accepted boundaries and conventions. BRITAIN S MOST BRILLIANT EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE COMPANY THE GUARDIAN Where are Forced Entertainment based? Sheffield, United Kingdom. How long have Forced Entertainment been together? The company met at Exeter University and have been making work together since 1984. 2

THERE IS A WORLD ELSEWHERE... So goes the famous line spoken by Coriolanus in the original play... Shakespeare has been translated into more than 100 languages throughout the world and remains today one of the most universally celebrated authors in history. In the last 10 years there have been over 7 professional productions of Shakespeare and Shakespeare adaptations in Arabic and productions of Romeo and Juliet in more than 24 countries. Since 1960, Hamlet has been published or performed in more than 75 languages! Shakespeare then, is something of a relentless force in the world, and Complete Works is a great chance for you to experience them all, condensed and uncomplicated, in the intimate and unique manner that Forced Entertainment tell them. This is the UK s most famous playwright meets one of the UK s most exciting contemporary theatre companies - this is Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare. Don t miss it. 3

ABOUT COMPLETE WORKS What is it? This is Forced Entertainment s latest project. As you can guess from the title - Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare - it involves the complete works of William Shakespeare. Even the poems? Alright, the complete dramatic works of Shakespeare - all of his plays (with the exception of Henry VIII, as there are serious questions over its true authorship). How many s that? 36. Everything from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Take a look at the Complete Works trailer. What about the Table Top part? One of the key ideas behind Complete Works is to take the most famous plays in the world - famous for their grand language, grand settings, grand characters and grand production values - and introduce a little intimacy and simplicity to them. And it starts with reducing the stage down to a simple 1 metre wide x 2 metres long table top. So how does it work? One performer sits at a table. The table top is the stage. Using everyday, ordinary objects to represent the characters, and speaking in everyday, ordinary language, the performer narrates the story at the heart of the play. 4

SHAKESPEARE SIMPLIFIED When you think of Shakespeare plays, what do you think of? Pretty long, sometimes a little tricky to understand, and unless you re a hardcore fan, you re maybe familiar with the classics - Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth - but perhaps not so with ones like Timon of Athens, Henry VI Part I, II & III and The Comedy of Errors. Complete Works is back-to-basics Shakespeare. It strips away the fancy sets, lighting, costume, actors and even the archaic language. What it leaves behind are the captivating stories at the heart of it all. Each performer s role is to be the all-present storyteller, using the table-top characters in a kind of lo-fi puppetry, retracing the plot. They are your guide through Shakespeare s canon. Check out the MAKING OF film with Tim Etchells here. There are no five hour long Hamlets to be found here - each play is condensed down to between 45 minutes and an hour. They are performed in cycles of three plays per evening and six plays per day on weekends. You are free to see as many or as few as you want - you may like to see those you re familiar with or try some you ve never seen before. The language is playful, amusing and easy to understand, making for a unique and intimate experience of Shakespeare. 5

ALL THE WORLD S A TABLE TOP STAGE... Below is the full Complete Works schedule at Teatre Lliure. Take a look and find out when you can catch your favourites! Tuesday 4th April 7pm Macbeth 8pm Comedy of Errors 9pm Measure for Measure 10pm King Lear Wednesday 5th April 7pm Romeo and Juliet 8pm The Winter s Tale 9pm Two Gentlemen of Verona 10pm Titus Andronicus Thursday 6th April 7pm Much Ado about Nothing 8pm Julius Caesar 9pm Pericles 10pm Hamlet Friday 7th April 7pm Richard II 8pm Henry IV Part 1 9pm Henry IV Part 2 10pm Henry V Saturday 8th April 11am Henry VI Part 1 12pm Henry VI Part 2 1pm Henry VI Part 3 4pm Richard III 5pm Coriolanus 6pm The Merry Wives of Windsor 7pm Antony and Cleopatra 8pm Loves Labour s Lost 9pm The Merchant of Venice 10pm A Midsummer Night s Dream Sunday 9th April 11am Troilus and Cressida 12pm King John 1pm As You Like It 4pm Cymbeline 5pm All s Well That Ends Well 6pm Timon of Athens 7pm Othello 8pm Twelfth Night 9pm The Taming of the Shrew 10pm The Tempest Complete Works Selfies Complete Works casts everyday objects to play the part of the characters in Shakespeare s plays. All together there are 663 individual objects acting in the 36 plays we present! From your own home, choose items from either your kitchen, bathroom or garage to create a scene from one of Shakespeare s plays. How would you cast it? Make a list of the objects and what characters they play. Describe what s happening in the scene, take a picture of your scene and tweet us with it! Don t forget the hashtag #CompleteWorks! 6

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE To quiz or not to quiz, that is the question... Think you know your Richards from your Henrys? Your Wives of Windsor from your Gentlemen of Verona? Take our Shakespeare quiz and test your knowledge! 1. Where was William Shakespeare born? 2. Hamlet was the Prince of which European country? 3. What were the names of the two families in Romeo and Juliet? 4. Who prophecised that Macbeth would be King? 5. Which is the only Shakespeare play set in Spain? 6. In A Midsummer Night s Dream, what happens to Bottom s head? 7. What is the name of the famous London open-air theatre in which Shakespeare s plays were originally performed? 8. Shakespeare wrote plays for the courts of two English monarchs. For one point each, can you name them? 9. In Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio falls madly in love with Antonio s daughter. What is her name? 10. 2016 marked 400 years since Shakespeare s death, but in what year was he born? Bonus Question (for all you hardcore Shakespeare fans): What is the name of the lost play which Shakespeare wrote, based on an episode in Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote? 0 - Comedy of Errors 1-4 - It s all Greek to me... 5-7 - Shakespeare Aficionado 8-10 - Upstart Crow 11 - The New Shakespeare 1. Stratford-Upon-Avon / 2. Denmark / 3. Montagues & Capulets / 4. The Three Witches / 5. Love s Labour s Lost / 6. It is transformed into the head of an ass / 7. The Globe Theatre / 8. Elizabeth I & James I / 9. Hero / 10. 1564 / Bonus: Cardenio Answers: 7

FURTHER INFORMATION A large print version of this pack is available on request, please contact: fe@forcedentertainment.com 502 Workstation 15 Paternoster Row Sheffield S1 2BX UK T: 0114 279 8977 F: 0114 221 2170 fe@forcedentertainment.com forcedentertainment.com Forced Entertainment is a limited company (company no. 2170819, VAT no. 8640 09), and a registered charity (no. 1049574). The company is also a member of the Independent Theatre Council.