Charles University students play Shakespeare
For the fifth year in a row, Prague audiences had a chance this spring to see a Shakespeare play delivered in the original. It was not performed by any distinguished Shakespearean company from Great Britain but by students of the Charles University department of English and American studies.
Former Charles University lecturer John Martlew is the man behind the whole enterprise.
"And we started to do bits of the Midsummer Night's Dream and then the people in the workshop kept saying: "Can't we do it, can't we do it?" And I said, "No, we can't because it's too much work and anyway, we haven't got enough people." "Oh, we'll find people, we'll find people," they said. So I said, "Well, all right, we'll try." But I was still teaching there then so it wasn't too difficult. We were able to gradually build up a cast. We took nine months to do it. And we did it and it was a great success."
But in 1998, John Martlew left Charles University and Prague and the improvised theatre company became director-less.
"So I left. And then, I used to come back in November for a party, to meet with the department. And I got the idea that, perhaps, I could come back in November, organise cast and then come back and do a play in five or six weeks. Which is what we do now. Because this is really the only time of the year when you can do the play because of students' exams, and you want to involve the first year. So we did Twelfth Night, and then we did Much Ado About Nothing and last year we did Troilus and Cressida which was a big undertaking. And this year we are doing As You Like It."
The leading lady, Rosalind, is played by Petra Nash who has been with the company since the very beginning.
"I first started in 1997 when I joined the group to play a nameless fairy in the Midsummer Night's Dream, and the year after I was promoted to Viola in Twelfth Night, which was great. And then I continued as Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. Then in the following play I was only the sound manager, that was Troilus and Cressida. And now I am Rosalind in As You Like It."
Orlando, or the main hero of As You Like It in the Charles University production is played by Richard Muller, also a veteran of the company.
"I enjoy the first half which is more active. It begins with a very emotional speech where Orlando complains about his position at the court and about the way he is treated by his brother. So this is a very good beginning, because it's anger, it's big emotions, you know, the acting is easier. Then there are many action-like scenes, when he comes there with a sword because he needs food for his old servant Adam, and when he carries him. Then he fights in the wrestling scene, and so on. So the first part for Orlando is very action-like and, of course, it plays easily."
Easy is not how Petra Nash describes her part of Rosalind in William Shakespeare's As You Like It. During the play Rosalind has to put on men's clothes and act as a boy.
"I think it's an incredible challenge, in terms of creativity and in terms of holding the team together. Because Rosalind manipulates the play and she manipulates all the people around her,and the men - and that I enjoy (laughs). I must say that last year when we played Troilus and Cressida and I was not part of the cast, I was only the sound manager, the feeling is very different when you're not part of the group. So when I am now a part of the group and we go to the pub and we have the party afterwards, the social life is very different when you are a part of the cast."
How do you feel in men's clothes?
"Oh, great. I prefer it, it gives me more freedom than this narrow skirt. And John knows that I'm boyish. He told me that when he cast me as Viola in the first place and he put me in men's clothes."
All the actors are students or graduates of English studies. Most of them had never been on the stage until they joined the company. And as director John Martlew says, they don't seem to find 17th century English difficult.
"Most of them not at all. Because, of course, they are studying English. Their level of English is incredibly high. And they work on it if they do. But on the whole we don't have this problem. It's extraordinary to me. I mean, the whole thing is extraordinary, that people whose English is, of course, their second language, are able to act. Because they act - they don't just talk, they act - in 16th or 17th century idiom. It's just extraordinary. It's because of this that I do it. Because it's done for fun. Our fun - I'm not sure if it's always the audience's fun but it's done for fun."
After five successful performances, the actors are still enthusiastic but their director John Martlew says he is considering retiring.
"I've done five and I'm beginning to wonder whether we should do any more. People want to, I think. Or at least the new people want to. I'm not sure whether some of the older people aren't beginning to find it too much because they're working now. Once you're in the group, I try to use people as much as I can but always to have new people and I like to have new students because otherwise I would not continue. So I don't know, really. I really don't know."
Richard Muller or Orlando says that if they decide to carry on, there might even be a change in the repertoire.
"Well, there are some suggestions that we do another play, maybe Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, but the future is unknown..."
Judging by the sold out theatre in Prague on what was the third night out of four, there would certainly be enough people interested in watching another play in English next year. Be it an Oscar Wilde play or a William Shakespeare drama again.
