Shakespeare play at mercy of the sky
No-frills performances of Richard III in the park depend on no rain
Brendan McMurtry-Howlett is nervous. Very nervous.
His theatre company, Shakespeare in the Ruff, launched last season in Withrow Park with a smashing production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Now it’s back with Richard III, opening this Friday.
It’s a much trickier play, one you can’t charm your way through, and it also raises the issue of whether this company will fall prey to the sophomore slump, as many do.
Those are all good reasons for the wrinkles that furrow young McMurtry-Howlett’s brow, but they’re not the major cause of his anxiety. It’s the weather. Shakespeare in the Ruff is an outdoor theatre of the no-frills variety. You sit on the ground on blankets. There’s no tent, no canopies, nothing. Thunder and lightning are worse enemies than bad reviews.
Last year, they were lucky. “We went in without a rain plan,” admits McMurtry-Howlett, “but something was smiling on us. We didn’t lose a single performance. It rained on our days off and all during our tech and dress rehearsals, but not when people were there to see the show.”
Even though they’ve taken the clever precaution of having an alternative indoor space nearby (in the new home of the Playwrights’ Project, 798 Danforth Ave.), company members still get antsy when the skies are cloudy, like they are on a recent morning.
“There’s a 40-per-cent chance of rain at 7 tonight, which is when we start our dress rehearsal. Can you see how tightly my fingers are crossed?” jokes McMurtry-Howlett.
“We live or die on the weather, since we count on collecting admission from the audiences when they’re in the theatre.” No advance sales, no subscriptions, no Groupon offers. It’s back to basics.
“Everybody in the company has a weather app on their phones and they check it more often than their Facebook pages,” he says. “There’s something primordial about having to care so much about weather, which we normally don’t do. I suddenly have a great affinity for the plight of farmers.”
The original Shakespeare in the Rough ran from 1994 through 2006, in a Riverdale park
But, as Shakespeare pointed out, “the play’s the thing” and McMurtry-Howlett becomes his usual smiling self when he discusses the production they’re working on.
“Diane (D’Aquila) and Alex (McCooeye) came to see us last summer. They had worked together at the National Theatre School on a production of Richard III that Diane directed and Alex starred in.
“What they remembered most vividly is that one day, late in the process, they were kicked out of a double-booked rehearsal hall and took their rehearsal outdoors to a park. They both said it broke the play wide open and they were anxious to try that experience again.”
D’Aquila is a highly esteemed actress, director and teacher who has played two of the show’s four female roles in previous productions at Stratford. She’s playing the Duchess of York this time, besides directing.
“She’s an amazing person to work with,” McMurtry-Howlett says. “She brings a world of experience to the project, but she’s always challenging us with new, fresh ideas.
"She says we should think of Richard as a kind of trickster, funny, fast on his feet, always running rings around everyone else.” Without giving too much away, McMurtry-Howlett says this production is “corporate, very modern, hard, fast and nasty. It’s all about the cult of personality and how Richard actually gets up to the top.” McCooeye is a tree-top-tall performer whose commanding stage presence automatically makes him someone who grabs your attention. “When Alex stands up to his full height, he’s something to behold,” says McMurtry-Howlett. “He wears a glove to cover his mangled hand and a small hump on his back, but it’s more about the acting than any physical tricks. He’s a conniving manipulator, which is always fun to watch.” What’s also fun to watch is how McMurtry-Howlett and his company are making things work. The original Shakespeare in the Rough ran from 1994 through 2006, presenting works that ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, but they never re- ally connected with the community. They were an acting company that happened to use a Riverdale park as their home. Not Shakespeare in the Ruff. McMurtry-Howlett was born and raised only a few blocks from where his company now performs; they focus on the neighbourhood they’re playing in, generating support and goodwill, which often matter more than money. The company played to 2,500 people last year, which may be just about one sold-out house at Stratford’s Festival Theatre but, on a sloping hillside in Withrow Park, the crowds were huge. Standing on that hillside at 7 p.m. Monday night, McMurtry-Howlett’s face broke into a grin as the sun came out from behind some dark clouds that suddenly didn’t seem quite so threatening any more. The weather gods were smiling. The show could go on.