by Steve Duck –
Bard at the Barn makes its inaugural visit to The Roost Farm Centre and Bistro Winery with performances of Othello and Much Ado About Nothing. Come out to the farm September 8 to 11 for the fourth season of Vancouver Island Shakespeare Arts’ (VISA) summer productions on the Saanich Peninsula.
This is the second year in a three-year programme of VISA’s “Shakespeare and Women.” Last year, it was Hamlet with his misogyny issues. This summer, Othello and his “honour killing” of Desdemona. King Lear will follow in 2017 with his epic folly of dividing his kingdom with his warring daughters.
VISA’s Othello is set on the island of Cyprus in the 1970s. The United Nations peacekeepers came to “walk the line” between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Othello, a Canadian general, is the UN commander on Cyprus. The tragedy revolves around the issue of domestic abuse against women, an everyday theme as challenging today as it was 400 years ago.
Much Ado About Nothing romps about in Messina, Sicily at the beginning of the 21st Century. The comedy wanders through the two love stories of Hero & Claudio and Benedick & Beatrice with their follies and foibles. With the wit and laughter sure to entertain, Much Ado About Nothing leads one down the well-travelled path of love.
Othello almost makes it into the sunlight of being too much ado about nothing. “Much Ado” keeps veering into an Othello. They both go amiss in the wrong and right ways. What is man? What is woman? What makes us husband and wife? In this, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, one is amazed with the writer’s talent for telling such timeless stories.
Further information on the performance dates, times and tickets can be found via www.vancouverislandshakespearearts.com or at the Roost. See you at the show!
Photo by Steve Duck.
