Ladies' Night

I was able to catch one of the Shakespearean offerings of the 2017 Key Bank Rochester Fringe Festival.  The short play, When Shakespeare's Ladies Meet, was produced by Aspie Works and performed at MuCCC.  The show was an enjoyable "What if?" in the world created by Shakespeare.

The premise of the play is a meeting of six of Shakespeare's leading ladies:  Portia, Cleopatra, Juliet, Katharine, Ophelia, and Desdemona.  They meet in Juliet's garden, where the ladies try to give relationship advice to the star-struck Juliet.  They all have experience in that area, and not all of it pleasant, as any reader of Shakespeare's work would know.  They learn, however, that Juliet is not entirely naive and has some advice of her own to share.

The set consisted of several pieces of patio furniture to simulate Juliet's garden.  All greenery was left to the imagination of the audience member.  The costumes were modern and ranged from dresses to suits.  All of the ladies had one common apparel item.  Each was attired in Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers.  That was a conscious decision by the director, borrowed, as he mentioned in his statement in the playbill, from a production of The Taming of the Shrew.

The script included many lines from Shakespeare's works, as well as plenty of title dropping.  It was as if the playwright had proceeded with the object of including as much allusion as possible.  I caught many of the references, but I wondered how much someone less familiar with the Bard would  understand.  The play provided minimal background within and relied on audience members bringing a working knowledge with them.  Not knowing the ladies' back stories would have detracted from the experience.  Seeing their interactions as each questioned the behavior of the others did make for entertaining theatre.

The play was as a woman's love--brief.  In fact, the advertised 45-minute running time was overestimated by 15 minutes.  Aside from 30 minutes of allusions, there was not much of a plot.  The play was advertised as "a little homage and parody...all in the name of fun."  On that count, it succeeded.  Anyone looking for more than that might have been disappointed, but Juliet borrowed a portion of Puck's closing from A Midsummer Night's Dream to apologize and to send the audience home happy.  It was an enjoyable, albeit quick, night at the theatre.