William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the best-known and most-loved plays in the world, everyone wondering whether the pairs of lovers will finally be united, whether Titania and Oberon will resolve their quarrel and restore peace in the world, and whether poor old Bottom will return to human shape after his transformation into a donkey, while Puck weaves his sometimes dubious magic around humans and fairy-folk alike.

Everything works out for the best, of course, and the figures come forward individually and in groups to take their bows. Yet one group of nominally minor figures often earns a greater cheer than the size of their roles might lead one to expect: the ‘rude mechanicals’, the six rustic artisans of Athens who have somehow managed to work up their Most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe into a quite frightful example of the worst of amateur dramatics.

It is these six brave souls whom the Australians Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor have taken as the subject of their play, The Popular Mechanicals, which we are performing this autumn. We see the six preparing for rehearsals, learning text while practising extravagant gestures, pondering what to do with Bottom, then pondering what to do without Bottom, following his transformation, attempting to work with a greatly experienced and totally drunk former professional actor as fill-in, and finally hitting the royal wedding celebrations with their well-intentioned but totally accident-prone performance.

All this is interrupted by more or less musical interludes, manic dance routines and jigs (including the infamous “Chicken Galliard”…), a heart-breaking song by none other than Elizabeth I herself, much Aussie humour, insults a-plenty and the mechanicals’ own special, inimitable, hysterical interpretation of the word ‘chaos’ – in short, a very light-hearted evening neatly blending modern English with easy-to-understand Shakespeare.

The play developed out of an idea by fellow-Australian Geoffrey Rush (who also directed the first full production), better known for his film roles in Elizabeth (Walsingham), Shakespeare in Love (Henslowe), the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films (Capt. Hector Barbossa) and, more recently, as Lionel Logue, Colin Firth’s royal speech advisor, in The King’s Speech.

Performances will be in the Schnürschuh Theaterhaus, Buntentorsteinweg 145, Bremen, on Tuesday, 21^st, Wednesday, 22^nd and Wednesday, 30^th November as well as on Thursday, 1^st December. They will begin at 7 p.m.; doors open at 6.30. Admission costs €8 for students and pupils, and otherwise €12. Tickets can be reserved direct from the theatre under (0421) 555410.

Please note that while it is not necessary to be very familiar with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a vague idea of the play’s plot – and especially the role of the mechanicals in the proceedings – is an advantage!

More information may be obtained from Michael Claridge under claridge@uni-bremen.de

We look forward to seeing you, your friends and acquaintances in the Schnürschuh Theaterhaus!

It is time for a history lesson about England and France in the early 15th century at the English girl’s school: ‘Boring,’ the young ladies at an English girls’ school think. But this class is different – and not just because of the tensions between the English girls and a group of visiting French pupils… In their imagination, the girls are travelling back in time to the early 15th century.
It is King Henry V who reigns England and who – through an intrigue of the bishops – thinks he is also the legitimate King of France. The French King, however, is not willing to give up his throne so easily. War breaks out and Hen-ry and his troops invade France, facing the enemy’s army although they know that they are numerically inferior. Escorted by the chorus, the English and French pupils witness the famous battle of Agincourt which will decide upon Henry’s victory and start a new period in the Hundred Years’ War between France and England.
The famous play by William Shakespeare is put into a present context by director Michael Claridge and the Parlement of Foules, the English theatre group of the University of Bremen. The premiere will be on Saturday, June 4th at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6.30 p.m.) in the Schnürschuhtheater Bremen. Further perfor-mances will be on June 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th at the same time – same place. Tickets can be reserved directly at the Schnürschuhtheater (Buntentorsteinweg 145, Tel. 0421-555410).

This year’s summer production by the Parlement of Foules will be Shakespeare’s Henry V. The play will be performed on 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 8^th and 9^th June, 2011 at Theaterhaus Schnürschuh at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6.30 p.m.).

Watch this space for the poster and further announcements.

Ein Mann am Abgrund
Parlement of Foules spielten „7 Stories“ des kanadischen Dramatikers Morris Panych im Theaterhaus Schnürschuh und bei der Bremer Kanadistik-Tagung „Der Hohe Norden“
von Ian Watson

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7 Stories by the Canadian playwright Morris Panych

In 90 fast-flowing minutes of crazy humour, sprinkled with pathos and bathos, The Parlement of Foules presents an evening that will entertain you but also – hopefully – lead you to think about your own values and life. A man considering suicide, standing on a seventh-storey building ledge, is confronted with the stories of the people who live on the seventh floor. These “seven stories” – often hilarious, sometimes fantastic, reflecting the crazy nature of apparently perfectly normal people – lead to a charming and surprising ending. It is striking how preoccupied everyone is with his or her own life, seemingly unaware of the potential for danger of someone standing outside their window on the seventh floor, a long way up and – significantly – a long way down… Truth and reality are revealed as very much in the mind of the individuals, to be distorted and reworked at will.
The plot may seem extremely serious, hardly material for a comedy, and yet this is precisely what Panych makes out of it. We find ourselves rocking with laughter and shaking our heads at our fellow humans (and thinking how much more ‘normal’ we are than them… really?!). On one level, the play is about serious existential questions, as the man debates whether to jump or not, whether God exists or not; on another, it points a warning, faintly mocking finger our attempts to define or explain our existence, our so-called philosophies of life, our attempts at rationalization and the fictions we weave about our lives, deceiving both those around us and ourselves in the process. Lurking behind this play are Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, even Monty Python’s Flying Circus – their immortal Argument Sketch clearly resounds through some of the discussions the man has with the building’s occupants. And the man himself bears a suspicious similarity to the transparent men in bowler hats in the surrealist paintings of René Magritte…
7 Stories is a wonderful work for anyone who enjoys English-language humour, easy to understand and totally uncomplicated in its storyline! It is suitable for school pupils with reasonable English who enjoy watching films in English. Given the simplicity of language and plot, as well as the relatively short duration, the play is an excellent introduction to English-language performed drama.
Panych has won many awards for his drama, notably the 1994 (Canadian) Governor General’s Award for Drama – Canada’s highest drama prize – for his play The Ends of the Earth. 7 Stories was the winner of six Jessie Awards in 1990, including one for Outstanding Original Play.
Note: this will be a staged reading (szenische Lesung), rather than a full-blooded performance; this is reflected in the somewhat lower admission prices.
Performances are in the Theaterhaus Schnürschuh, Buntentorsteinweg 145, Bremen, on

• Monday, 25th October, 2010
• Tuesday, 26th October, 2010
• Monday, 1st November, 2010.

Performances begin at 7 p.m., and last approximately 90 minutes. Admission is from 6.30 p.m. Tickets cost €5 for pupils and students, and €10 for all others; they can be booked online or by phone from the Theaterhaus Schnürschuh (0421-55 54 10).

The Parlement of Foules website is currently under construction.