Shakespeare
on a shoestring

Against the odds, outdoor theatre’s
artistic director Paul Hopkins keeps
the show on the road

BABES IN THE WOOD: As You Like It

by NEIL BOYCE

When you’re talking about the plays of William Shakespeare and the work of a great local company putting on free shows in parks around the city, the subject of money just seems so...vulgar. Actors and crew have to eat too, however, and for Repercussion Theatre and their Shakespeare-in-the- Park tour of As You Like It, everything this year is slimming down.

Repercussion’s artistic director Paul Hopkins, who doubles as production director of this season, set this version of the play in the 1850s, contrasting Victorian staunchness with a logging-camp, Québécois folk milieu.

“I thought those two worlds would fit really nicely with the two worlds that are in the play,” says Hopkins. The director’s brother, classical musician Mike Hopkins, had just released a record, and a particular song on the album suggested the theme of the play: “A pastoral setting with a bit of melancholy in it.” Following a collaboration with dance troupe Zogma, whose works revisit and update Quebec folklore and step dancing, Hopkins had his production: an historical mash-up fusing different styles and languages.

But recovering from last year’s disastrous season has been tough on the company: bad weather, a shortfall in fundraising and the sudden cancellation of a grant in 2008 are all reflected in the smaller scale of this summer’s season, with their previous few French-language shows cut entirely. Twentyone shows are planned, weather permitting, for the company’s 21st season—a slightly smaller line-up with no separate English and French language productions. Instead, shows this year are in English interspersed with French.

“We don’t have a lot of people who will purchase our French versions,” says Hopkins, “and we found— especially in these times when things are really tight—it was a stretch on our resources to do two versions of the same show. We have to connect to French-language presenters, and we don’t have that naturally as an anglophone company.”

“It’s already very difficult on the English side to find people who will purchase the show—because we do it for free for the audience—therefore somebody pays for it, and it’s usually predominantly English boroughs.”

In previous years, the company would often get only partial funding for their French-language versions, and have had to perform on occasion for no pay at all.

Operating with a production budget reduced by 20 per cent (administratively, they’ve cut back even more), virtually all resources this year are going into the show itself. For Repercussion, most of the money gets spent on touring: the set has to be built and then struck every night, large vans are needed to move it from place to place, and security must be hired to guard it all.

And the Bard’s works aren’t solo shows: it takes a cast of nine, at Actors Equity wages, to tell this story, even with actors doubling up on roles.

But Hopkins is unfazed, saying the cutbacks only mean that Repercussion is doing what it’s always done: “We’re returning to our core,” he says, “touring the parks...and it’s great to have the sky at sunset as your backdrop.”

SHOWS CONTINUE TO AUG. 16.
SCHEDULE ONLINE AT
REPERCUSSIONTHEATRE.COM,
(514) 931-2644