Bryant Park celebrates The Bard

I was thirteen and had just started high school when I met Shakespeare for the first time.  Mrs Mac introduced me to him via The Enchanted Island, an anthology of stories adapted from Shakespeare plays that was published in 1966 but which still resonated nearly thirty years later.  When my hormones were a complete mess the following year, “Romeo and Juliet” made perfect sense to me.  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” offered just the right mix of fairy magic and human relationships for a romantic fifteen year old.  At sixteen I studied “Macbeth”, that dark and bloodthirsty tale of single-minded ambition that showcased Mrs Millar’s Scottish brogue to best effect.  And then in my final year of high school, as I grappled with making serious decisions about my future, I felt a natural kinship with the brooding Prince of Denmark in “Hamlet”.

If what they say is true, and the prime ingredients for a successful relationship are timing and chemistry, Shakespeare and I seem destined to be together for a long time to come. 

The Bard has actually been a big part of my life since those high school days.  On stage and screen, in productions professional and otherwise, I’ve devoured his work.  Seeing “Henry IV” Parts 1 and 2 on the same day at The Globe in London remains one of the best experiences of my life.

Here in New York there is no shortage of opportunity to rekindle a relationship with Shakespeare.  You can visit Central Park any time and walk around the beautiful Shakespeare Garden (behind the 79^th Street Transverse), or once a year they have a celebrity-studded “Shakespeare in the Park” festival that is free to the public (but gets hugely crowded).  And for something completely different, you can even see a raucous production of “Drunk Shakespeare” in a small theatre just off Times Square.

The sets really aren't fancy

But if you find yourself in Midtown over the next few months, why not do what I did and be a groundling in Bryant Park, located just behind the New York Public Library?  During this summer season, The Drilling Company (a New York-based theatre group) is staging free Shakespeare productions in Bryant Park and tonight was their second-to-last performance of “Hamlet” (the curtain falls on May 31).

That Shakespeare has never been staged in Bryant Park before is not the only reason that tonight’s production was special.  This play is part of the Drilling Company’s “Shakespeare in theParking Lot” series and as its name suggests, it would normally have been performed in a public parking lot on the Lower East Side.  It’s the Drilling Company’s way to make Shakespeare more accessible to people, and take it out of fancy theatres with elaborate sets.  But when the Bryant Park Corporation contacted the company and invited them into greener space for this year’s series, The Drilling Company decided to breathe new life back into their 2011 hit production of “Hamlet” and share it with an uptown audience.

Pre-show entertainment

According to the Drilling Company’s website, their “intrepid, bare-boned productions have become a New York tradition” and it wasn’t hard for me to see why.  This was a decidedly modern take on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.  The title character is as madcap and dysfunctional as ever, and in keeping up the pretense of being crazy he torments the confused and naïve Ophelia.  But in a stroke of genius, Polonius is cast as a psychoanalyst-type character and when he’s not nagging his children, he’s making many of his observations about Hamlet into a tiny tape recorder for later playback.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take selfies with the Royal Family, Queen Gertrude is rarely without a glass of wine in her hand, and King Claudius delivers his lines so casually and conversationally that you actually forget you’re hearing Shakespeare.  In fact, none of the actors spoke in that over-enunciated way that we’ve come to expect from Shakespeare.  The performances were relatable, accessible, and really engaging.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
meet the Danish Royal Family

My only regret about tonight was that I forgot to bring a jacket.  When the sun went down, it was quite cold sitting out there in Bryant Park with no protection from the wind.  I definitely learned my lesson for next time.

Speaking of which, the Drilling Company’s next Shakespeare performances in Bryant Park will be “Twelfth Night” (July 10 to 26) and “Othello” (July 31 to August 16).  Performances start at 7pm, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.  Shows are only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights so make sure you book your calendar.

** NEWSFLASH**  This article is also going to be published on the CityElla website in the next few days.  Please visit this great New York site, whose contributors are also keen to share their NYC stories with you.  Many of them venture where I'm too scared to tread (like nightclubs and dating sites), so it's definitely worth a look!  **