Other
than providing Vancouver residents with performances of great Shakespearean
plays for the last 25 years, Bard on the Beach also runs an active educational
programme, to give young people the skills and the confidence to speak on
stage, as well as an appreciation of the beauty and drama of the great
dramatist.
Riotous
Youths is a new initiative of Bard whereby “graduates” of the Young
Shakespearean programme could continue to participate in workshops and hone
their acting skills. To mark the end of this new endeavor, the group of young
artists put on a show with brief scenes from some of Shakespeare’s most well
know works. To add an element of chance to the performance (a la John Cage?),
the names of the plays were put in a hat, and audience members were asked to draw
from the hat to determine the scene to be performed.
This
was a remarkable hour of theatre. Musicians and actors, who set out to recreate
great works of art, should have only one goal in mind: to ensure that whatever
he or she is doing, no matter how “original”, is to be true to the spirit of
the creator, be it a Shakespeare or a Mozart. These young artists gave us their
“take” on scenes from the plays they had chosen, and performed them with
conviction, verve, and a youthful enthusiasm undiminished by “experience”. At no time during the performance did I feel
that they were trying to be different for the sake of being different. Unlike
certain professional directors, they did not try to use Shakespeare to further
their own political or personal agenda. And at the end of the performance, I
was convinced that they had stayed true to the spirit of Shakespeare.
Funding
for the arts in today’s society is often tenuous at best, and becoming more and
more so. In North America, there appears to be unlimited funds when it comes to
sports. Bard’s Riotous Youth programme has shown us that when we invest in the
arts, we are investing in the future of our young people. Let’s hope that this
very worthwhile initiative will continue to thrive and grow.
