Arts
Get thee to a riotous bardic evening!
It was 2009, and Colombo was waiting to assimilate a new play by two American playwrights, Mark Eaden and Fazer Hoesh. There were whispers, rumblings and insinuations as the footlights flashed, but it took time to dawn on the audiences (and on a portion of the cast) that the director Feroze Kamardeen had pulled a fast one- and duped them with two anagrams of his own name: he was himself the moonlighting script writer of Hamlet at Elsie’s Bar.
Rosie Crantz and Guilda Stern: Serving girls at Elsie’s Bar
But StageLight&Magic had decided to stage the play on a fatal weekend. Colombo was hit by a bomb 15 minutes before the curtain fell. It was almost as if the tragedy they were rigging out in comic garb insisted on flashing out its true colours.
Notwithstanding the inauspicious premiere, Hamlet at Elsie’s Bar, Feroze’s first musical, picked up, and was a great success.
Shakespeare, miserably clogged with writer’s block, visits Elsie’s Bar for a pint of ale and perhaps a chance brush with the muse. It is in the drama crackling within the family of mine host- watched closely by young ‘Will’- that he finds his plot- only substituting lofty Danish royalty for earthy barmaids and taverner’s sons.
“Mine host” at Elsie’s, Osric, is killed by his brother Claude so that he can marry Osric’s wife Ophelia. Interwoven into the tale of vengeance that follows is the romance between Osric’s handsome son Horatio and the village belle Layertee. Shakespeare finds himself drawn into the intrigue- in fact, his hands get tainted with poison.
It is a story told with utmost drama and panache, whose wonder is that, despite many murders (by poisoning or by clobbering), it remains a brilliant comedy. It was a show that brought the house down- and now returns with a fresh cast- under the direction of Sashane Perera.
By adjusting and playing with Hamlet’s pedigree and name, Feroze claims he is just continuing a bardic tradition. Shakespeare borrowed heavily, he points out, including the Merchant of Venice from Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.
What with Arsikland and Pusswedilla, Feroze has had ample chance to hone his song writing skills. “Around 75 to 80 songs for the two musicals (Arsikland and Hamlet..)” he counts, “and about 50 for Freddy and Pusswedilla put together.”
He enjoys a free hand with the melodies, spinning on his favourite tunes from the 70s and the 80s- with a few of the early millennial 2000s.
On the upside for the simpler soul (that vestigial kind that thinks Shakespeare is a synonym for bombast) the audience will not have to unravel thickly layered iambic pentameter in the guise of speech. “It is simple language and easy to follow.”
Feroze adds, “It’s a fun play, and I am sure the audiences will have as much fun watching as the cast and the crew will have when performing- and as I did when writing.”
Horatio - best friend of Shakespeare and son to Osric
Osric - Owner of Elsie’s Bar and father to Horatio. Pix by Malaka MP On the cover: Will Shakes
Claude - Brother of Osric and barman at Elsie’s Bar
Sashane Perera the new director is himself a theatre veteran. He takes on the reins from Feroze with full permission to manoeuvre the steed as he pleases.
For Sashane the tryst at Elsie’s Bar takes ‘Shakespeare to the wider public’, while exploring the question of how the bard, who left school at 13 and never saw anything beyond green and gold (and still rather conservative) England, saw enough of life to be the most brilliant English writer ever.
Sashane, busy with four days of rehearsals a week, promises a riveting musical- all thrown in with a witty script and, he reminds, a live six piece band. A riotous bardic evening to be savoured.
Hamlet at Elsie’s Bar will go on the boards at the Lionel Wendt from October 4 to 8 from 7.30 p.m. Tickets can be now bought from the Wendt and the theatre’s online platforms.