393 years old, and hotter than ever before

First of all, I’d like to say that the quality of all this year’s plays has been excellent. Last year there were some rumours saying that Shakespeare Day should become “Will’s World”, because the standards weren’t all too high in some of the plays. However, the plays of 2009 have stated clearly that it should be no such thing as “Will’s World”; it is, and it will remain Shakespeare Day.

Richard III
Winner of:
– Best Actor; Richard III, portrayed by Mikael Nilsson
– Light and Sound

Very clear and elegant adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with a Godfather-theme that worked terrifically. The thriller-like and intriguing mood in the play was set superbly by the first monologue. Together with the use of sound in the background it worked well throughout the whole play.

The costumes helped set the mood and emphasise the adaptation. Most of the acting was really good. There were many talented actors and actresses who had good presence on stage, and excellent characterizations of their characters. The portrayal of Richard was remarkably professional and really made it tough for the next plays’ actors to match. The depiction and the adaptation of “The Wars of the Roses” were tremendously intelligent, and the usage of it in the PR was really good.

Every year one can see that the use of Shakespearian language easily becomes “remembering and retelling lines” instead of actual acting, however, this class managed to use the difficult language and make it understandable. And of course, the execution scenes need to be mentioned as well.

Hamlet
Winner of:
– Best Supporting Actress; Ophelia, portrayed by Aili Garcia
– Best Extras; most skin shown, best drummer boy, best musical performance, best face paintings… The list is long…

Amazing costumes, really good stage design, talented actors/actresses, well rehearsed and professionally performed. This play has taken Shakespeare Day to a whole new level. It was a performance like never before.

Sure, The Lion King is based on Hamlet. But taking The Lion King to the stage? The idea was original and could seem unworkable, and I can admit that I was a bit sceptic about it at first. However, seeing the costumes (well, the body paintings, which were fantastic by the way) and the set (which was also out of this world) raised the level of expectations. The opening scene with music and dance helped set the mood and tempo in this Shakespearian tragedy set in Zambia. The mood and the flow were kept throughout the entire play, which is often very hard to achieve.

In the jury-room there really was a “to win or not to win” moment when it came to this play, and the slogan “the catfight of the year” couldn’t have been better suited. Unfortunately, the number of prizes is limited. And according to me, Hamlet did not receive enough prizes for their amazingly outstanding performance.

Macbeth
Winner of:
– Best Script

The adaptation of the tragedy “Macbeth” was very intelligent and original. Making a Shakespearian play come to life as an episode of Star Wars is not something just about anyone can do. But IB1 showed that they had the capacity of doing so, and managed to do it with an excellent result.

They won a prize for “best script”, and nominated for several other prizes. The costumes were very innovative and suited the theme and the characters very well. The sound might have been a bit too loud at some places, which would make it hard for the audience to hear the actors and actresses. However, what surprised me was that some actors were so good at acting, that they didn’t even have to be heard to be understood. A very hard accomplishment.

Just as the execution scenes needed to be mentioned about Richard III, the fighting scenes need to be brought up about “Smackbeth”. In the script it says “super ultra mega giga terra awesome fighting scene”, and the scenes really lived up to what the script said.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Winner of:
– Best Overall production
– Audience’s favourite
– Best PR
– Best Supporting Actor; Nick Bottom, portrayed by William Hagströmer
– Best Actress; Hermia, portrayed by Anna Garoucheva Gonzalez

The well deserved winners of 2009’s Shakespeare Day. It was a great overall performance with a bunch of funny jokes, which worked well with the audience. I think I laughed constantly throughout the entire play. Absolutely outstanding acting, and well-performed dances, which mostly served a purpose to the plot. As said, the actors and actresses were great and had good timing and excellent presence on stage.

It seemed as if ES1B had a lot of fun on stage, and looked as if they enjoyed working together. This really showed, and this “confusing, yet amusing” play became the audience’s favourite.
The idea of making the people into scenery (the trees) was very creative, and using this as a part of the PR was great. It was probably the most diverse PR I’ve ever seen, and they were all truly well done. I’m not sure what more to say. I’ll let the prizes speak for themselves.

The Merchant of Far, Far Away
Winner of:
– Best Scenery

It was an exciting journey through many known and loved fairytales, and a very clever adaptation and interpretation of the play “The Merchant of Venice”. This class had many interesting and fascinating ideas of how to adapt the different events and characters from the original play. For example, making Shylock into a witch, having a giant lead Antonio from the stage and turn the three caskets into a part of the tower Portia was captured in. It was all very clever.

The scenery was fantastic, and it seemed almost impossible that the class had managed to do something so incredibly professional in the relatively short amount of time they get to work for Shakespeare Day. And also the set changes worked fairly smooth, and all I can say is that The Merchant of Far, Far Away won the prize for Best Scenery without any discussions amongst the jury whatsoever. Even though this play did not win the glamorous “Best Overall Performance”, keep in mind that “all that glitters is not gold”.

As stated earlier, the standard of Shakespeare Day this year has been extraordinarily good. As nothing can come from nothing, all we can do is to keep our fingers crossed that next year’s Shakespeare Day can live up to what we have experienced this year.

Text & photo: Hannah Rooslien