The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 26.334 Monday, 20 July 2015
From: Hardy Cook <
Date: July 17, 2015 at 3:15:56 PM EDT
Subject: King Lear With Sheep: Shakespeare Play Performed by Sheep
[Editor’s Note: This article is from the London Evening Standard. –Hardy]
King Lear With Sheep: Shakespeare play performed by sheep in Hoxton
Most directors have stories of working with awkward cast members, but Missouri Williams, who is putting on a production of King Lear at Hoxton’s Courtyard Theatre has really got her work cut out – her cast are almost all sheep.
Yes, real-life, woolly, bleating sheep.
King Lear With Sheep will run from August 12-16 and feature nine sheep wearing specially designed costumes and ‘acting’ in a reimagined farmyard-set version of the Shakespeare classic.
It tells the story of a harried director – played by human actor Alasdair Saksena – trying to put on a production of King Lear and failing because his cast are sheep. Like Lear, he feels betrayed and goes mad, and his typically thespy diatribes become mixed with speeches hijacked from the original play.
As the theatre’s website reads:
“A stubborn director is trying to put on a production of King Lear with a cast composed solely of sheep. As expected, her actors are both silent and mutinous. Much chaos ensues. King Lear with Sheep is an experimental re-evaluation of its famous predecessor that overturns theatrical conventions through the startling and revolutionary device of costumed sheep.”
The most shocking part of all this is that it’s been done before – Williams and her crew of sheep performed on a Sussex farm last year.
It’s up to ewe whether you go and see it, but if so it’s probably best to pay a visit to the theatre’s baa first to help open your mind a little.
Tickets are £11, available at thecourtyard.co.uk.