'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?' - Shakespeare's most famous quote has echoed around auditoriums and schools all over the world but rarely with rolling 'r's and the type of gestures more often seen by an angry restaurant customer who has been waiting for his dinner for over an hour. Such was one of the many scenes played out by Daniel Foley in his free performance 'Shakespeare's Kings and Clowns' at a packed house of over 170 people at the British Council in Kandy.
Daniel Foley is a well known Shakespearian specialist who has performed in over sixty-four countries worldwide; his one-man shows have received critical acclaim and he is the founding member of his current theatre company 'Performance Exchange'.
In his Kandy performance Daniel brought alive all areas of Shakespearian drama, from the tragic and macabre to the comic and historic, with scenes from 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Macbeth', 'Hamlet', 'The Tempest', amongst others, with significant aplomb and the willing participation of members of the audience, who took on cameo roles as he explored the breadth of the great bard's work. Other highlights of the show included impersonations of Marlon Brando and John Wayne taking on Shakepearian roles and an insight into some of the techniques used in hand and sword fighting on the stage.
Daniel also shared his knowledge of Elizabethan theatre with the audience and tested their knowledge through an interactive quiz, which included a 'name that play' test and questions on the different characters and scenes of Shakespearian drama.
So, back to the question at the beginning of this article, where is Romeo? Well, the answer's really quite simple, he's where's he's always been, on the gondolas in Venice, in the pubs in London, on the cruise boats of the Nile and in the Salsa halls of Buenos Aires. All the world's his stage and briefly, on November 14th, at a fun-filled and interactive performance, he shared that stage with an appreciative audience at the British Council in Kandy. |
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