Guess where Shakespeare goes for inspiration?
A maverick launch for the musical at the Floor by O!. Pic by Ishanka Sunimal
Elsie’s Bar was teetering with an an overdose of Elizabethan ego. No less than the Bard of Avon had deigned to drop in, and in his rich silk doublet, ruff and breeches was lording it like a peacock.
The Floor by O! down the rum old Maitland Crescent was doing the honours as an Elizabethan tavern. It was just as dark and dodgy- and you wouldn’t be surprised to spot Falstaff nursing a pint with a roving eye.
StageLight & Magic had planned this maverick launch for ‘Hamlet at Elsie’s Bar’- their production to come out early October- authentic 16th Century right down to the ale they were serving the curious press.
The evening began with ‘Will Shakes’ preening and primping- throwing back to the dingy shadows the rest of the cast- handsome Horatio and the slatterns Rosie, Gilda and Claude.
The narcissistic poet rather snootily took up the relative merits of the Globe Theatre in London and ‘the Lionel Wendt in Colombo’. On the upside for Colombo, there are toilets- whereas the poor Father Thames had to serve that purpose for the Globe’s audiences.
But in London, there was all the fruits, vegetables and eggs thrown to the stage by audiences (making unnecessary regular visits to buy groceries). The staid audiences here, he complained disgustedly, just sit and clap politely.
Also Queen Elizabeth, who always attended, had not been sent her royal invite by the team.
The production team arrived late for the press release, a connivance by Will who had sent them the wrong time, so he could ‘hold court’ long enough before they came to snatch the ‘micro-thingy’ off him.
Sashane Perera, who is the director, in his denims and black shirt a stark contrast to all the dazzling finery, announced that the curtains will open on ye (dark, musty) olde pub from October 4 to 8, at the Lionel Wendt from 7.30 p.m.
The story, a musical comedy, is an authentic work written by Feroze Kamardeen.
It is the fictitious tale of a young William Shakespeare, inspired to write his tragedy ‘Hamlet’ by observing the lives of the patrons of a bar.
Going through writer’s block, the bard has taken to languishing at Elsie’s, a frenzied hotbed of ‘incidents, love affairs and accidents’- “where people are killed and people die, where some laugh and some others cry”- as Feroze puts it with a dash of Elizabethan verve.
Dinesh Maheswaran is producer while Tehani Tissera and Amarsha Tissera will be the music directors.
The tickets for this bardic roller coaster of a musical, priced at Rs 4,000, 3500, 3000 and 2000 (downstairs) and 800 (balcony), will be available at the Wendt, and the theatre’s online platforms, from September 18. Thespians- Godspeed!