Produced by Run At It Shouting and Flying Colours Productions, playwright Mark Ravenhill is behind a fund-raising event, raising money for the Hackney based NIA Project, who help women and children who have suffered abuse. Ten plays have been developed and directed by Ravenhill using Italian stage actor Flamingo Scala’s collection of scenarios first published in 1611. These fifty scenarios of commedia dell’arte plays pre-date Shakespeare and his Renaissance theatre contemporaries and were published under title ‘Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative’, in which one was a tragedy, nine were fantasy, and the remaining forty were comedies, and the shows that we have seen over the weekend came from the latter category. Scala, provided Ravenhill with the framework to work with, Ravenhill’s skills as a playwright were called upon to provide the actors with their dialogue, unlike when Scala performed as the plays would have been improvised. It is interesting to think that pre-Shakespeare, improvisation was a key element in performance and provided the roots to theatre as we know it today.
Each of the ten plays can be watched independently, so no need to play catch-up with the story, as the characters are developed differently within each separate play. As the viewer of nine out of ten of these plays, it was interesting to see Ravenhill play with the characters to see how the differing scenarios would treat them. Some of the actors played in more than one of the ten plays, and one cannot blame them, as the experience was bawdy, risky, and hilarious to witness, so as a performer I am sure it was a treat to be able to work with such liberal material.
If you are easily offended, then these may not be the plays for you, but if you enjoy the ‘Carry-On film’ type humour with a side order of Benny Hill (now I am showing my age), none of the humour is designed to be offensive, merely to allow the audience to indulge themselves in easy to watch fun, and bawdiness.
The delivery of the plays is fast-paced which called upon the actors to be adept at reading and performing quickly, and due to the nature of the content, some corpsing happened, as I am sure that they were aware that they were pushing the limits of what is usually deemed as acceptable within the confines of modern theatre. It was refreshing to witness theatre without limits, and to take a peep into what theatre would have been like in 1570-80’s, Italy. There was little politics in these plays, just throwing the main characters in different bizarre situations, and playwright Ravenhill must have had fun getting them into trouble. Each play was rounded off with a ditty to the tune of ‘What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor’, with such gems as ‘Hands Off You Dirty B*stard, or You’re For The Chopper’, or ‘Kiss, Kiss, Your Handsome Lover’, you see now the bawdy, ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’, type of humour we were watching here!
I think the funniest (in my opinion) of the plays that I watched was ‘Run At It Twins’, which reminded me of scenarios from Shakespeare plays with doppelgangers, and double-entendres galore. The line ‘All The World’s a Brothel’ found its way in there and may be a clue that Ravenhill was conscious of the fact that the twins scenario was picked up by Shakespeare in his two comedies The Comedy of Errors, and Twelfth Night.
Quite rightly the performers received a rousing round of applause at the end of each show – there are too many performers to mention, but I salute all involved for taking the time to be a part of this extravaganza, and for donating your time to the fund-raising effort over the weekend.
Do these plays have an afterlife I hear you ask? That question I cannot answer, but let us hope so, as laughter is such an important part of life!
If you would like to take a look at the list of performers and support crew involved, follow this Instagram link to the ‘Run At It Laughing’ page – https://www.instagram.com/runatitlaughing/
To learn more about the NIA Project, go to – https://niaendingviolence.org.uk/
Preview written by – Caroline Worswick