Complete Works: Tabletop
Shakespeare.
Directed by Tim Etchells Forced
Entertainment. The Space Adelaide
Festival Centre. Adelaide Festival March 8 – 16 2025
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
 |
| Robin Arthur tells the story of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar |
Complete Works: Tabletop
Shakespeare is an inventive way of telling the stories of Shakespeare’s plays
in eight days with each play being explained in approximately 45 – 60 minutes.
Unable to see all plays, I chose to go to Julius
Caesar being presented in the
Adelaide Festival Centre’s intimate Space Theatre. In the centre of the stage
was a table and chair. On the table was a simple sign with Julius Caesar
scrawled in pencil. At either side of the stage was a set of shelves filled with
a range of spirit bottles, medicine pill boxes and an assortment of condiment
bottles.
Actor Robin Arthur enters and sits in the chair behind the table Beside him can be seen a variety of bottles that might be found in an everyday kitchen cupboard. These will be used to represent the characters in the play. Arthur begins to tell the story of Julius Caesar. As he does he brings out a bottle or tin or some other oil, spice or condiment to help explain the unfolding tale. In Julius Caesar the soothsayer who utters the warning about the Ides of March is a pill bottle. The leading characters then make an appearance. Caesar is a litre bottle of olive oil, Marc Anthony a tin of baking powder. Brutus is a plastic tube of sauce. Cassius another and so on. The senators in the forum are plastic cups. As Arthur tells the story he moves the objects around the table, describing the action with a gentle narration. It is told with the persuasive tone of a masterful storyteller, drawing his audience in to the plot. His voice delivered in an entirely natural tone captures the scheming intent of Cassius or the confusion of Brutus and the manipulation by Marc Antony at the Forum. The objects play out the scenes, slaying Caesar, fighting at Philippi, arguing amongst themselves, falling on one’s sword. This is all told in a voice that catches every nuance. It is colloquial and accessible as a prelude to tackling Shakespeare’s blank verse and prose.
When I was a child I would pore over Charles Lamb’s Shakespeare for kids, stories of Shakespeare’s plays written simply in a language that any child could understand and sometimes accompanied with pictures to heighten the tension and a sense of excitement in the great Bard’s canon. Forced Entertainment’s Complete Works: Tabletop Shakespeare replaces the image of the written word with Arthur’s skillful and engaging narration. He is a consummate storyteller, who instantly captures his audience’s interest and makes the story of the play accessible and entertaining. The pictures in Lamb’s stories are replaced with kitchen accessories such as bottles, tubes, spice jars and plastic cups to make the story interesting and accessible.
I wondered whether the school
students who were in attendance were rapt in the story. It lacked the drama of
the assassination, or the power of Antony’s oration, the pathos of Portia’s
plea or the gruesome killing of the poet Cinna or the fury on the battlefield.
There is irony laced with humour. It is an entertaining introduction to a play
that may not instantly appeal to a student. But it is not Shakespeare. Some of
Shakespeare’s text could have been incorporated in the storytelling. If Complete works: Tabletop Shakespeare is
designed as an introduction to students to then be followed up by seeing a
performance of the play with the knowledge of the plot, then the performance is
an educational asset that could excite the interest in stories that have lasted
for centuries and an appreciation and understanding of the works of William
Shakespeare.
