Oxford is spoilt for choice with outdoor performances of Shakespeare plays – why was I trekking out of the city centre to see a Festival Players’ production?
The Festival Players have a gruelling summer schedule all over the UK and into Europe, seldom spending more than a night in each place – truly a troupe of travelling players. Their stage, scenery and props have to be portable, versatile and compact – and this gives them something in common with their 16th- and 17th-century predecessors. Likewise the all-male cast, necessarily doubling roles and functions, but there’s no banging of the authenticity drum.
On the lawn beside the seventeenth-century Cogges Manor farm (Yew Tree farm to Downton fans), they set up their stage and gathered the audience in an area naturally contained by the golden house wall on one side and more distant and lower outbuildings; behind us, and facing the stage was open countryside – fields, trees, an expanse of skyline and, as dusk fell, a golden moon.
So yes, it’s atmospheric – and a rural, open atmosphere different from the by-and-large enclosed, urban open-air settings in Oxford colleges, where gardens and lakes can provide a stunning but always a man-made backdrop.
Atmosphere is all fine and good but you don’t need to sit down for hours in the chilly late-summer dusk to experience it – the play’s the thing. And The Winter’s Tale is not an ‘obvious’, ‘easy’ choice for outdoor Shakespeare.
Quite apart from that briefest of stage directions, ‘Exit pursued by a bear’, there’s a huge challenge in convincing the audience of King Leontes’ progression to ‘jealous tyrant’ with the chaos that ensues – wife dead from the shock of his accusations, young son and heir dead from grief, repudiated baby daughter en route for abandonment in the harshest and most distant regions. A key factor in this production is the director’s unobtrusive adaptation, which skilfully cuts scenes and cast without compromising character and allows the plot to run clear. Another real plus is the focus on making Shakespeare’s lines clear and intelligible: the audience hear the nuances of Leontes’ thought processes as he lays out the king’s distorted perception of reality in a series of monologues bringing credibility to his transformation into ‘jealous tyrant’.
The famous bear made an impressive appearance as huge head and vast clawed hands over the top and side of the box scenery in a ‘He’s behind you moment’ but when, moments later, one of the shepherds describes his encounter with the victim, the laconic ‘He’s at it now’ brought the out-of-sight horror more vividly before us than any bloodthirsty munching, ‘Bear eats man’ scene on stage.
Shipwreck, discovery of shepherd princess, statue brought to life – the audience were enthralled and disbelief suspended. Unexpected touches – like the mysterious small tubes handed out by the rogue Autolycus to said prince and his father to avoid their discovery, which turn out to be handy false beards – intrigued at a different level.
Change of mood and pace, with songs and music making an integral contribution, as well as the unflagging talents of the small cast, made this energetic production in the Cogges Farm setting a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Watch out for them next year and book a ticket!