“Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.” - Ariel
In the 17th century, female actors were considered prostitutes. So, casting for Shakespeare’s plays involved careful selection of clever male actors adept at morphing from pants to skirts at the drop of a sword – or a hanky.
What a lot of people don’t know, however, is that aside from performances at the Globe and the Rose, ensembles of no more than six actors made the rounds between country estates performing plays for audiences that even included the likes of King James I and Shakespeare’s beloved patron Queen Elizabeth I,
The Herculean mission for these gallants was shouldering not just one role but several for each performance.
Imagine you’re playing Trinculo the clown, dodging Stephano’s blows, then sliding “backstage” (probably a piece of cloth draped over a rope) where a cap is thrown on your head, a skirt attached to your belt and you and your testosterone are suddenly propelled back onto stage to gawk over Ferdinand as the man-crazed Miranda.
That’s exactly what Brian Sheppard did with amazing ease Thursday night at Plimoth Plantation as he and the Plimoth Players brought a level of hilarity, fun and power to Shakespeare few would expect outside Stratford-upon-Avon.
Maybe it was Dan Klarer’s sidesplitting rendition of Stephano, gulping down port in a drunken stupor and trying to make a head or a tail of the monster Caliban. Or, perhaps it was Brian Sheppard’s tri-colored performances as Miranda, Sebastian and a befuddled Trinculo (who stopped to rub an audience-member’s head as he considered whether to accept Stephano’s apology).
But Samuel Gedymin was equally winning as the sprite Ariel, and positively commanding in the opening scene, as Boatswain at the shipwreck. He shrieks commands to crewmen with an intensity that suspends disbelief. Suddenly the audience is, indeed, onboard a doomed ship – a difficult thing to accomplish with few if any props and just the human voice.
But it seems unfair to single out these three. Will O’Bryan rolls through scenes as Caliban, drawing laughs and surprises, appears seconds later as a love sick Ferdinand and seconds after that as an equally convincing Antonio.
