Theatre Royal Bath’s splendidly irreverent Shakespeare Unplugged festival returns this month, promising three weeks of off-kilter riffs on the Bard and his themes. Steve Wright rips up the text.

At some point over the past five centuries, someone decided it was OK to mess around with Shakespeare’s texts in a way that we would never with, say, a Pinter or even a Sheridan. With those playwrights, we would simply take the play as it is – we wouldn’t mess around with it. Whereas with Shakespeare… perhaps his work is so universal that we all feel as if we own it, so what’s wrong with doing whatever you like with it?”

The speaker is Kate Cross, director of the egg theatre in Bath – and, for our purposes here, of its brilliant annual smorgasbord of Bardolatry, Shakespeare Unplugged. The latter returns this month for its third and biggest-yet incarnation: three weeks of mind-bendingly eclectic performance all inspired, however tenuously, by Will’s works. So you’ll find, among others, a circus/multimedia show inspired by the tortured states of mind of Macbeth and his Lady ('The Judgement of Macbeth', pictured); an evening of musical comedy with “the world’s first Shakespeare tribute band”; an urban dance ‘Richard III’; and a four-episode soap omnibus, ‘Machamlear’, interweaving Will’s three great tragedies into a modern East End setting.

Eclecticism, in short, is the watchword at Shakespeare Unplugged 2012. Do what you will with Shakespeare’s themes, character and language, is the invitation to its writers and performers: just create something dramatic and captivating and in some way, y’know, Shakespearean. “It’s all about each person’s sensibilities, so I wouldn’t draw the line anywhere,” Kate reflects. “If artists are inspired by the brief and are passionate about what they are doing, their piece –circus, soap opera, folk songs – will mean something to them and therefore hopefully to audiences. The rest is down to taste.”

One unifying thread to this year’s Unplugged is the domination of local talent – from burgeoning Bristol/Bath theatre companies New Old Friends, Hammerpuzzle and RoughHouse, via talented writers, directors and choreographers (Lee Lyford, Hattie Naylor, Chris Harris) onto homegrown strands like the egg’s YPT company and the Engage strand from its parent Theatre Royal Bath. “Some of Unplugged’s most exciting nights have been about local artists and young people examining Shakespeare and finding completely different things from what, say, I might find,” says Kate. “That creativity and freedom is very exciting.

“It’s a celebration of Shakespeare’s vast canon of work, but what gives Unplugged its character is the fact that it’s coming out of small spaces at the Theatre Royal. It’s not about what you might see at the National Theatre, RSC or Donmar, but what happens when creative visionary artists get hold of a text and have fun with it. We like to encourage artists to be as irreverent as possible. Take whatever you find interesting, captivating about a given play, scene or character, and reinterpret it in a way that feels right to you.”

SHAKESPEARE UNPLUGGED TOOK PLACE AT THE EGG AND OTHER VENUES ACROSS CENTRAL BATH FROM SAT 11 FEB-SUN 4 MAR. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK

Will power?

Shakespeare, then. Peerless chronicler of our changing moods, emotions and misdeeds – or an old set of texts in need of a makeover? Read on as some of Bristol, Bath and Shakespeare Unplugged’s key theatre makers give us their take on The Bard.

Tim Crouch

A performer who began his career in Bristol, Tim is now the much-lauded creator and performer of brilliant Shakespeare spin-offs such as ‘i, peaseblossom’, ‘i, banquo’ and ‘i, malvolio’. Later this year he will direct a young people’s ‘King Lear’ for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

“Contemporary culture needs a core of historical material – myths, narrative archetypes – against which it can test itself. It can't just cut itself away from the past and try to re-invent itself from scratch. This is Shakespeare's great strength: his work is a yardstick against which contemporary culture can measure itself. We have to keep approaching it to measure our current cultural health.

“His characters and stories also influence how we think about ourselves as humans. They are, however subtly, hardwired into how we see ourselves, how we talk about our condition. In terms of our humanistic understanding, Shakespeare is as influential as the Bible.

“But we mustn’t approach his plays as archaeological digs. Theatre should not be concerned with how we lived then but how we live now. We are free to approach Shakespeare however we want – to cut, rearrange, modernise. It annoys me when actors adopt a 'Shakespearean' voice or a particular way of moving or standing or looking. And anyone who does an all-male production because 'that's how they did it then' needs their head examining.

“I've been lucky because, with the seven of his plays I've worked on as a writer and director, I have had licence to be free with the text. My focus is on storytelling and character – anything that gets in the way of that gets removed. Shakespeare's language is important but it is not sacrosanct.”

FFI: WWW.TIMCROUCHTHEATRE.CO.UK

Gill Kirk

Bath playwright Gill Kirk has written ‘It’s All One’, a “light-hearted demystification of Shakespeare’s language”, for Shakespeare Unplugged.

“Shakespeare would weep if he saw we run scared from his language. He wrote for everyone, from the highest to the lowest, at a time when hardly anyone could read. Even Elizabethans wouldn't have understood everything he wrote – so many made up or borrowed words. But that didn’t stop people enjoying what they saw on stage! This play helps to break down that language barrier. It’s about the man as his work, and about language and the universally of Shakespeare’s themes. Shakespeare was a normal bloke: wife, kids, bills, mates. The play shows us a bunch of people in the pub having the same debates about theatre that we have today. Think [Marx Brothers classic] ‘Duck Soup’ meets the old men from The Muppets…

“Shakespeare showed with great sympathy what it is to be human. His characters are believable, warts and all, and the situations they find themselves in – sometimes totally unbelievable – keep us wanting the best for the good guys and justice for the bad ’uns.”

FFI: WWW.GILLKIRK.COM

Sharon Clark

Bristol playwright, author of ‘Tiger Country’, ‘Pavement’ and ‘The Biting Point’ among others.

“I was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, so I have some very big issues of my own with Shakespeare. Being a teenager in a town held in a half nelson by coachloads of tourists, a MacDonald’s with stained-glass windows of the Bard and a huge theatre seemingly slurping up all the energy around it, does not make you yearn to spend three hours watching a king losing his grip on reality. Mechanically studying ‘Hamlet’, line by sodding line, for six months during A-levels did not further endear him to me.

“But all things come to pass and at the age of 32 (!) I saw my first Shakespeare play. It was Cheek by Jowl’s ‘Twelfth Night’ – with an all-male cast, featuring a young and gorgeous Adrian Lester. It was a revelation.

“I am still not Will’s greatest fan (more lost twins, anyone?) – or maybe I’m not a fan of the unquestioning worship of him (an academic once confided that “maybe ‘Pericles’ isn’t a very good play”. The horror !) But I’ve had my interest re-awakened by companies who breathe new energy into his plays. And he did write “Finger of birth-strangled babe ditch-deliver’d by a drab” –my all-time number one line.”

FFI: THEATREBRISTOL.NET/SHARON-CLARK

Tim Atack

Bristol writer, performer and experimenter with sound and theatre, whose pre-Xmas sound and action piece ‘The Morpeth Carol’ drew fulsome praise.

“My favourite versions of Shakespeare’s plays tend to be cinematic, like ‘Throne Of Blood’ and ‘Ran’[Akira Kurosawa films based respectively on ‘Macbeth’ and ‘King Lear’]. Unfortunately most Shakespeare I see on stage is dead from the neck up and the waist down. It’s just actors shouting in long shot.

“It baffles me that these productions get glowing reviews, where the criteria often seem to be: ‘a good, accurate reading of the play’. The results are measured by what the company did with Shakespeare, not what they did with the audience. But I don’t go to the theatre to have something confirmed, I want it to take me somewhere new.

“The brilliance of Shakespeare’s language doesn’t let you off the hook as a theatre-maker. You’ve got to tell the story in the right way for here and now, otherwise you’re just another museum piece like all the others. So it’s great that Shakespeare Unplugged has a real mix of approaches to these old familiar stories. It’s especially intriguing that the mime Nola Rae is performing (I saw her as a five-year-old when she toured to my school in Brazil) and there’s something difficult and wonderful about the idea of a wordless ‘Hamlet’.”

FFI: WWW.TIMATACK.CO.UK

Shane Morgan and Ben Crystal

Shane is director of Bristol’s Roughhouse Theatre, who make two Unplugged appearances, including ‘Venus and Adonis’. A collaboration with actor and ‘Shakespeare on Toast’ author Ben Crystal, it’s a dramatic rendering of Shakespeare’s poem about a goddess’s lusty seduction of a beautiful (but indifferent) young man. Notes Wikipedia: “The poem contains what may be Shakespeare's most graphic depiction of sexual excitement.”

Tell us about ‘Venus and Adonis’.

Shane: It's playful, it's sexy, it's funny. Venus’s passion for the boy blinds her to all else. It's the beginning of a relationship and the end of the relationship all rolled into one neat and beautiful tale. All the text we present is Shakespeare's own, but Ben’s adaptation has a very contemporary edge, as well as nods to Greek chorus.

Just what is it that keeps Shakespeare fresh and relevant after 400 years?

S: His language is physical, dynamic, and it packs a punch. More important, though, are the truths Shakespeare tells. While we may never, ourselves, have fought wild boar, murdered a monarch or usurped a crown, we have certainly felt ambitious, lustful, playful and all the emotions he so truthfully and poetically describes.

Ben: Shakespeare’s writing is a beautifully ornate frame, but within that frame is a plain canvas. Following his clues, you can paint whatever character you like – and it’s you holding the brush. Each one of us would give a completely different Hamlet, Macbeth, Rosalind or Kate. To play Shakespeare well, you must respect the writing – but also bring your own life experience to that writing. His plays need discipline, blood, sweat and tears. And a certain amount of irreverence.

What are the key dos and don’ts when adapting Shakespeare?

S: Theatre-makers fear cutting Shakespeare. But some things that may have been hilarious 400 years ago drop like a lead balloon today. One of my favourite days in the process is day one with the script, pencil and ruler. To quote Sid James, “Eat, drink, be merry. Tomorrow we snuff it.”

Is it necessary to update Shakespeare’s settings for modern audiences?

B: It’s more important to convey an understanding of the context they were set in, and to appreciate that these plays were written in a very different cultural, political world. For example, Hamlet doesn't become king when his father dies (read: is murdered) because medieval Denmark had an elective system for the throne, and presumably Claudius pulled together a very good and quick campaign while Hamlet was away in school. ‘Macbeth’, meanwhile, was written in the middle of the European witch craze, just after the attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the recently installed King James of Scotland.

FFI: WWW.ROUGHHOUSETHEATRE.COM AND WWW.SHAKESPEAREONTOAST.COM

Gerard Logan

RSC veteran Gerard Logan is performing his one-man rendition of Shakespeare’s poem ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ – about a brutal sexual assault by a Roman prince and its effects upon both victim and perpetrator.

“Like ballet, Shakespeare is not naturalistic nor everyday, and never will be. You don’t see people doing ballet steps down the street, and yet audiences pay to see people move in this strange way that does not resemble human behaviour – yet has more to do with the crux of being a human being than anything they see around them. Similarly, Shakespeare’s plays don’t resemble everyday life – and didn’t in Shakespeare’s time, nor did people go round talking like that – and yet somehow have got more to do with the truth of being a human being than any of the artifice you see around you every day.

“Shakespeare is verbal ballet, and you’re barking up the wrong tree if you try and make it naturalistic and everyday. But, because the writing is so outstanding, what will happen if you do justice to the text is that it will be accessible to people even in ways that they do not understand. Just as if I flick a switch the lights go on, without my understanding all the mechanics.”

FFI: WWW.GERARDLOGAN.CO.UK

Copyright Steve Wright 2012; 'Judgement of Macbeth' pic Andrea Martinez; Ben Crystal pic University of Reno;