The Play’s The Thing, Theatre Yes. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Talk about a hold on the collective consciousness. For 400-plus years the world has been wondering, and arguing, analyzing and thinking about Hamlet, the most celebrated and mysterious of plays by history’s most celebrated and mysterious playwright.

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It’s been four centuries of wildly divergent interpretations (face it, being dead hasn’t slowed Shakespeare down much). But the production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet that happens over two nights Oct. 7 and 8 on the Westbury stage under the Theatre Yes flag, will be like no other the world has ever seen. By definition.

The Play’s The Thing is the bright idea of Theatre Yes, and the calling card of its two new co-artistic directors Ruth Alexander and Max Rubin,. They invited 20 different Edmonton stage companies, of every proclivity, size and aesthetic, to perform one scene each from Hamlet in their own signature house style. Saturday night, 10 companies do Hamlet Act I scene i to Act III scene iii. Sunday night, 10 companies carry Hamlet forward Act III scene iv to the big finale of Act 5 scene ii.

Really, haven’t you always secretly wondered what a Mile Zero or Good Women Dance Hamlet would look like? Or what the House of Hush Burlesque take would be? What if Teatro Live! did Hamlet? How would the sketch comedy trio Girl Brain dig in? Or the neo-bouffon collective Batrabbit?

When Theatre Yes put the call out to the theatre community, they weren’t sure what to expect. Alexander and Rubin, relative newcomers to the scene here who emigrated from Britain seven years ago with their own company (Lodestar) and a zest for experimentation, were amazed and delighted by the response. Within a week 20 Edmonton performance companies had said Yes. The only No they heard was from Punctuate! Theatre, and only because they’re on tour (with First Métis Man of Odesa).

“Edmonton is quite the theatre town,” says Rubin in admiration. “There’s so much going on.” In Liverpool, where Lodestar did site-inventive Shakespeare among other off-centre ventures, casting about for 20 companies to go on a theatre adventure “would have been a real struggle,” says Alexander. “There’s not nearly the volume or breadth….”

The raison d’être of The Play’s The Thing, in this post-pandemic out-of-joint time when theatres are hoping to get audiences back through the doors full strength, is “to show us what we’ve got!” As Rubin puts it, “we need to create something for everybody to celebrate the amazingness of the theatre scene here…. So we hope it does!”

When Theatre Yes was casting about for new artistic leadership (after the departure of Heather Inglis for Workshop West), the couple, who’ve now retired Lodestar, couldn’t believe how perfectly it aligned with their own theatre profile and proclivities. “It’s exactly what we’ve done for that last 15 years!” says Rubin. “Innovation was in the Theatre Yes mandate. And that’s us: we’ve taken great delight in experimenting, in making things that are new to us, and to other people. That unknown-ness is really exciting to both of us.” The Play’s The Thing is built on that very principle of unknown-ness.

The Play’s The Thing, Theatre Yes. Photo supplied

Why Hamlet? “It’s the most iconic play in the world.” And not only does everyone have their own idea about what it is, it’s a play that seems always to speak to the moment. And there’s this: it’s nice and big, Shakespeare’s longest, a size large 20-scene play, “pretty capacious with a great big range of characters.” Some of the scenes are huge, others fleeting. “I can’t wait to see what people do with them, how many people they use, what their approach will be.”

“There’s a real sense of ‘we’re in this together’:  the audience and the cast are discovering the whole play together” for the first time. In this, it follows the original practice at Shakespeare’s Globe, says Rubin, where the first nights of plays were more expensive than subsequent performances — “because no one knew what was going to happen.”

The artistic spectrum from the companies who stepped up to do Hamlet is unexpected, and fascinating. There are established text-based theatres like Shadow, Northern Light, Workshop West, and L’UniThéâtre. Catalyst, which specializes in marrying bold theatricality, music, and poetic text, will do a scene. There’s an emerging artist collective, Ready Go Theatre, and an indie company that seeks out the off-centre in musical theatre, the Plain Janes. There are artists of the improv persuasion (Rapid Fire Theatre). There’s drag (Guys in Disguise), burlesque (House of Hush), sketch comedy (Girl Brain), and dance (Mile Zero and Good Women Dance). And there are even theatres that specialize in matters Shakespearean: the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Thou Art Here Theatre, and Theatre Prospero. You can see the full list on the Theatre Yes website.

What will happen, scene by scene? What sort of Hamlet will it all add up to? That, my friends, is a mystery, not least to Rubin and Alexander. “We have no idea!” says the former happily. “And we can’t wait to see. No one will know till it happens. And that’s the joy of it!” Says Alexander, “all the companies are under strict instructions not to tell us anything.” And between-company collaboration is absolutely verboten, too. “They have to keep everything secret, and they’re finding it hard apparently,” she laughs.

Theatre Yes gave every company $1,000. The only stipulation in spending it is that “every Equity member they use in their scene has to be paid (the required) amount. “For considerations of space”  the maximum cast size is 10.  “What’s important to us is that their company ethos and style is foregrounded…. We wanted people to go crazy with their signature style, for them to show everybody what’s at their core. The original text of Hamlet is less important than that.”

You won’t get lost. The sketch comedy troupe Marv N’ Berry hosts, and introduces the scenes. There are graphic prompts to the story. And “all the Hamlets have to wear black, and no one else can.”

The Play’s The Thing is a celebration of “our community of artists,” says Rubin, “all focussed on the same goal, to raise as much money as we can for a really good cause.” All proceeds go to the Food Bank.

“It cross-pollinates and re-vitalizes audiences between companies,” hopes Alexander. “We’ll all benefit from that…. And it shows Edmontonians what they have here in the city.”

It’s “hi community! We’re here and we’re ready to work and collaborate!”

[The Theatre Yes adventure continues. Next spring (April 11 to 21), look for a production of the gruesome, disturbing Martin McDonagh play The Pillowman in the Pendennis Building on Jasper Ave. downtown.]

PREVIEW

The Play’s The Thing

Theatre: Theatre Yes

Directed by and starring: 20 Edmonton performance companies each doing a scene from Hamlet

Where: Westbury Theatre, Fringe Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave.

Running: Oct. 7 and 8

Tickets: fringetheatre.ca, theatreyes.com