Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble – Twelfth Night – Sun 19 Oct 2008 – Roma Street Parklands

The Bear says:

Judging by how easy it was to get tickets at short notice, the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble has to be one of Brisbane's best-kept arts secrets: these guys are nothing short of amazing. We first saw them last year in Much Ado About Nothing, performing on the stage of the auditorium in the Roma Street Parklands and sharing it with the audience – this is Shakespeare intimate-style. Twelfth Night was performed in the same venue but with a slightly different stage arrangement. While Much Ado About Nothing had been played with the audience on tiered benches either side of the performance space, Twelfth Night had the audience seated on the stage in long rows facing outwards towards the auditorium proper, with a Japanese-style screen with a sliding door erected at the edge of the stage serving as a backdrop.

Everything here is minimalist: the set doesn't change, the ensemble is small requiring doubling of roles, and props and costumes are minimal and stylised. This is risky business; it reduces all the elements of theatre down to essentially just two: the text and the players. And with an established, more-or-less fixed text, that leaves a lot riding on the players. But it works! I think that a large part of the success lies in QSE's approach, summarised in the programme as:

QSE believes that theatre is at its most powerful when actors work with clarity, honesty, vulnerability, and generosity of self.

It seems to me that in this, they succeed.

The two QSE performances we've seen so far have been comedies, and I wonder how this intimate, almost casual approach to Shakespeare would work with tragedy? Anyway, we're already looking forward to seeing what they might give us in 2009.

The Girl says:

I think the QSE are by far my favourite Brisbane theatre group - I may have only seen two of their productions, but they have been amongst the best theatre I've ever seen. And, of course, they don't put on any modern rubbish :-) Oops, sorry, my bias is showing!

Like Much Ado About Nothing that we saw last year, this production was simply excellent. The performances, all bar one, were flawless and the actors are simply wonderful. I was struck again by the effectiveness of the use of physical comedy by QSE performers and the minimalist approach to sets and costumes simply allows the talent to shine through all the more. The other noteworthy thing about the QSE is their wonderful musical talent. The performances of both Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night were complemented by wonderful live folk-style music, both before, during and after the plays themselves. This music is an excellent addition to their plays and adds a whole new layer to the plays themselves.

Brilliant!