Currently in the mist of rehearsals for their upcoming double-bill of star crossed lovers in Romeo & Juliet and Troilus & Cressida at Oxford Castle & Prison, the excitement is mounting.
Staging the two Shakespeare one hour plays every evening from June 17-29, local theatre company BMH Productions hope to attract a new audience by bringing the lesser known Trojan war epic Troilus & Cressida alongside the classic ill-fated love story of Romeo & Juliet.
“We want to get to the heart of the timeless stories being told,” BMH director Jessica Reilly tells us, “because there are still a lot of barriers around Shakespeare’s work and we want to cut through that.
“But essentially we paired these two because they are both about star crossed lovers, jealousy, revenge and loyalty, but while Troilus & Cressida is set in Ancient Greece, Romeo & Juliet has a modern setting. So they’ve got fight scenes, love stories, battles and some wonderful costumes all set against the beautiful backdrop of Oxford Castle.”
We just aim to keep it fresh while being true to Shakespeare’s language and poetry
So how hard was it editing these seismic Shakespearian plays down to an hour each? “That’s what we are known for and we choose plays that we can pair together and link thematically,” Jessica explains.
“You just to have a keen sense of the story you want to tell and take the audience with you on that journey. So for BMH it’s about story-telling and keeping the pace going with a real energy and clarity,” Jessica explains.
“You just to have a keen sense of the story you want to tell and take the audience with you on that journey”
“And by cutting it to an hour we can take out a lot of the unnecessary political context and instead concentrate on the stories and characters,” she adds.
“We just aim to keep it fresh while being true to Shakespeare’s language and poetry. So that’s the fun and the challenge – to find the balance between the two.
“we also want to make sure we reflect the world around us with a bit more reality than in Shakespearean times so there are queer stories within this”
And when you consider that the full Troilus and Cressida is over three hours long, it’s understandable that these days people like to digest things in smaller bites. But that doesn’t mean losing quality, because there is a lot of value in telling stories simply and clearly and giving people variety, rather than being judgmental about their attention spans,” Jessica adds.
And very few people have seen Troilus and Cressida so it’s a good way to introduce some new Shakespeare as well as the classics.
“But we also want to make sure we reflect the world around us with a bit more reality than in Shakespearean times so there are queer stories within this, Patroclus and Achilles in particular, so it’s very accessible. Love stories are for everyone.”
The cast of 15 are therefore hard at work ready for the opening night on Monday, BMH first up in the Oxford Shakespeare Festival line-up at Oxford Castle. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE FESTIVAL HERE
“Staging our plays annually at Oxford Castle means that we attract a really diverse audience from tourists and locals to schools and academics, all keen to see something they haven’t seen before as well as more familiar plays.
“people return year after year because we share stories that affect an audience, and people really engage with that”
“So people return year after year because we share stories that will affect an audience, and people really engage with them,” Jessica adds proudly.
BMH PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A SHAKESPEARE DOUBLE-BILL ROMEO & JULIET, WITH TROILUS & CRESSIDA AT OXFORD CASTLE & PRISON FROM JUNE 17-29. BOOK HERE: http://go.bmhproductions.co.uk/Shakespeare2024
