Media Reports
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER: Well-known Port Elizabeth actress Lesley Barnard portrays Prospera, the ousted Duchess of MIlan, opposite her daughter Gemma, 15, who plays the spirit Ariel in a scene from Shakespeare's last play, "The Tempest'. Te play runs at Mannville Open Air Theatre in St George's Park from February 24 until March 5. Call (041) 581- 1738 for bookings. Picture: IVOR MARKMAN.
Relatively tempestuous affair
Shakespear’s ‘The Tempest’ will be the stuff family dreams are made of, writes Ivor Markman.
When the annual Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival stages The Tempest from next week
it will truly be a family affair for no less than five family groups will be partaking.
There will be a mother and daughter, Lesley and Gemma Barnard; a father and daughter, Mark and Chloe Shelton; a brother and sister, Sebastian and Emma Albertyn; a grandmother and granddaughter, Helen and Megan Wilkins; and a husband and wife, Rocky and Brigitte Mann.
Well-known Port Elizabeth director/actress Lesley Barnard is playing the lead role of the Duchess of Milan, Prospera, while her spirit character Ariel, is played by her 15-year old daughter Gemma.
Director Helen Flax told Barnard she wanted to use Gemma and when she was asked if she wanted to portray Ariel, the teenager was very excited.
"When I act opposite her, I see myself. I look at her and I see a mini me.
“She's got that same cheeky face I had at that age. I see the confidence in her and I love it," Barnard said.
Production secretary Megan St Clair Wilkins, who recently returned to Port Elizabeth, was delighted to be joining her grandmother and said working on The Tempest was a sort of a homecoming.
"As long as 1 can remember the Shakespeare [productions] have always been a family affair. I've grown up always knowing this was a family thing.
"You'll find a lot of people who have been in the productions come back, bring their families along and get them involved.
"I mentioned to Helen [Flax] I would be happy to help out a few nights and she said 'we need a production secretary'.
"It's nice to sit with the director and to follow her thought process," Megan said.
"I've always been so busy with varsity and life gets in the way and to be here every night with her you know I drop my car oft at gran's house and we drive here together and have our little chats it's fantastic," she said.
Sebastian Albertyn, 16, who plays the part of Adrian, brought his sister Emma, 19, to audition for the show because she's studying at Port Elizabeth's new film school, AFDA.
Asked if he was intimidated knowing she was watching, he said, "No, because we're in the same boat. We're both very inexperienced and it's comforting because afterwards we laugh at each other's mistakes."
Sister Emma said she felt it brought them closer as siblings.
"We don't really see each other that often because we are busy with school and also busy doing other artsy stuff.
"I drive him here every day then we act and see each other on stage. I don’t think we've ever seen each other on stage properly and we get to speak about the same things," she said.
The Shelton and Mann families are synonymous with Mannville both having been instrumental in its establishment.
John Shelton worked for the parks department and Helen Mann was a key player in the establishment of the PE Shakespearean Festival.
It's not surprising their families are still so closely associated with the annual productions.
The Herald
February 19, 2016.
GENDER BENDERS: Director Helen Flax, right, with women who play traditional male roles in the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival's production of ‘The Tempest’. They are, from left, Emma Albertyn, a mariner, Lesley Barnard, Prospera, and Sarah de Lauwere, the boatswain. The play opens on Wednesday.
PHOTOGRAPH: IVOR MARKMAN
Gender-bending ‘Tempest’
Bay director follows Hollywood’s lead to cast Shakespeare’s main character as a woman, not a man, writes Ivor Markman.
After watching "If one studies Helen Mirren's 2010 performance as Prospera in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest Helen Flax was totally inspired to also change the gender of the leading role player, Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, into Prospera, the Duchess of Milan, for her next production, which opens at the Mannville Open Air Theatre on Wednesday.
When The Tempest was written, circal6l0-1611,women were strictly forbidden by law to partake in theatre productions as it was considered highly immoral and vulgar.
"It was a ruling - there were no female actresses in Elizabethan England theatre," Flax said.
To overcome the lack of female actresses most of the plays were consequently written for males.
Young boys were used, appropriately dressed in layers of women's clothing and topped with very fashionable wigs.
Unfortunately the white, lead-based make-ups of the time were extremely poisonous and many a young boy actor either died of lead poisoning or had his face badly scarred.
"Rather than having a boy pretending to be a girl, many just wrote the play as a story about men because it was too difficult to 'gender-bend'. It was easier," Flax said.
“If one studies The Tempest you’ll see there is one female role and that is of Miranda," Flax said.
Flax acknowledges making Prospra a female rather than a male is a big move.
"He is the iconic wizard and the father figure.
"But why should it be a male?" she asked.
"It could just as easily be a female.
"If Helen Mirren can do it for Hollywood, then why can't Lesley Barnard do it here in Port Elizabeth?
"In terms of the gender change I did take my lead from the gender change adaptations done in the film. It was very cleverly done, tastefully done, and it did not stray too much from the original metre of the script or the meaning or the intention."
But Barnard said she never saw it as gender-bending.
"To me there was no reason why this wasn't a woman with her daughter who had been thrown out of Milan.
"It's not as if we've gender bent because we didn't have a male actor to play it - we chose to play it with a woman.
I don't really believe we are gender bending at all with this particular role," Barnard said.
Actually, the relationship, I think, between Prospera and her daughter Miranda comes across stronger with it being a woman.
"It gives Prospera more humanity, whereas you could say if you play it as a man it's more vengeful.
"I find it is almost natural for the role to be a woman's but I suppose there will be purists out there who'll say it should be played by a man," Barnard said.
"I see no reason why this can't be a woman.
“This was decided long before the auditions.
Helen and I had a discussion and I said if we ever do The Tempest again I'd like to give that a bash.”
Tickets to The Tempest, at 7.30pm from February 24 to March 5, are R65 (adults) and R40 (school block bookings).
Contact Helen Wilkins on (041) 581-1738.
Weekend Post
February 20, 2016.
Gender bending roles add impact
to excellent Tempest
Text by Bob Eveleigh - Photos by Ivor Markman.
Copying the 2010 film version of Shakespeare's last play - in its 400th anniversary year - by gender-bending the leading role of Prospero, usually played by a man, to a woman, as done by Helen Mirren, Helen Flax sparks her production of The Tempest in remarkable fashion.
Because Lesley Barnard, last year's Best Director (for Twelfth Night) and Best Actress (for Other Desert Cities) in the annual Clover Showtime Awards, displays similar top acting form as Prospera.
Lesley anchors the entire production perfectly and, with Flax having unerringly cast the work (with much other male to female role-swopping) in its entirety, her staging maintains the brilliant quality of last year's Mannville presentation.
Barnard's sheer stage presence, experienced enunciation and assurance with the Bard's words, adds immeasurably to one's enjoyment of this work, and she blends marvellously well with whoever is on-stage with her at different stages of the play, which is Shakespeare's shortest.
The result is a production that flows from start to finish, making it easily accessible even to folk encountering the playwright for the first time.
Helen Flax, helped by the great technical skill of the proven Mannville team led by Rocky Mann and Manny Fokos, and including terrific sound effects and ideally chosen music, sets the scenes for the laugh-raising, romance and sheer magic that the play demands .
Every role is well played - which is saying something in a work with so many important speaking parts - and the teamwork on display would do credit to a major stage musical.
The other gender-bent parts are Ariel, Prospera's Puck-like fairy who, as delightfully played by Gemma Barnard, flits hither and yon to do her mistresse's bidding and move the action along, Gonzala (Gonzalo), most sympathetically portrayed by Mannville first-timer Jamie-Lee Reynolds, as Prospera's long-time supporting courtier, and Trincula (Trinculo) played to the fullest degree of drunken fun by Chloe Shelton, as the partner of the similar hard-drinking Stephano (Tim Collier, building on his last year's Feste).
Flax secured another fillip for the show in securing the services of the immensely experienced Leslie Speyers, in a perfect "come-back" role as he captures just the right look, presence and vocal tones of Alonso, the King of Naples.
Again, her casting of the tall Emily Bradley, as Prospera's comely daughter, Miranda, opposite the even taller but just right Glen McIlroy (another fine PESF debutant), makes them a highly believable "love at first sight " couple and they handle their moments together beautifully.
Jacques Batista and Ray Saunders, as Prospera's villainous brother, Antonio, who usurped her title as Milan's ruler, and his courtier Sebastian, make them probably Shakespeare's most under-written pair of rascals but they both contribute to the main theme of the play, which is Prospera's revenge on Antonio, after 13 years of learning magic and planning.
Completing the line-up of principals - and unrecognisable under his costuming by Brigitte Mann and make-up, is the brilliance of Gareth Bain, as Caliban, Prospera's son-of-a-witch servant, who gets terribly involved with the plans of the alcoholic Trincula and Stephano.
In another unusual piece of casting, Bain moves easily from regular main lead actor in the past to this important supporting character.
Mention of his costuming and make-up ( by Leslie Speyers*) raises the thought that a great deal of the play's fantasy and court impact is due to the work throughout by Brigitte (aided by some costumes provision from Robin Williams and Rose Cowpar) and Jamie-Lee (her make-up for Gemma Barnard's Ariel is noteworthy) as well as the experience of Leslie Speyers in the hair and wigs department.
Finally, Amy Huntly and Anke Staphorst and support Ariel perfectly as her two dancing "Echoes", all the trio's many movements, plus the "bows" dance, choreographed by Bennie Gerber, also adding materially to the ethereal impact of this fine producrion.
My advice? Don't miss it because it is two hours of sheer theatrical magic!
The Tempest, directed by Helen Flax, starring Lesley Barnard, presented by the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival, running to Saturday, March 5, at 7.30pm nightly (except Sunday) at Mannville Open-Air Theatre, St George's Park, Port Elizabeth.
My advice? Don't miss it because it is two hours of sheer theatrical magic!
* WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Jamie-Lee Reynolds came up with the concept of Caliban’s make-up and made the artificial ears which Caliban wore.
Speyers only took over after Jamie-Lee asked the director for assistance as she didn’t have the time to do her own make-up as well as Caliban and Ariel.
Gender-bender ‘Tempest’ oozes magic
THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare.
Presented by the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival at the Mannville Theatre, St George's Park, until March 5.
Director: Helen Flax.
Cast: Lesley Barnard, Emily Bradley, Gemma Barnard, Gareth Bain and ensemble.
Reviewed by Ina Randall. Photo: IVOR MARKMAN
Few productions are as suitable to a sultry summer night in the park as The Tempest, set as it is on a romantic tropical isle with magic oozing from the very air.
Director Helen Flax took a giant leap in this production and gender-bended Shakespeare's leading character, Prospero, into Prospera, played by Lesley Barnard.
Prospera is the usurped duchess of Milan, cast adrift on the sea with her baby daughter Miranda (Emily Bradley) by her dastardly brother Antonio (Jacques Baptiste).
They fetch up on an island where Prospera becomes an expert magician, studying her books and subjugating the many island spirits, including Ariel (Gemma Barnard), as well as the man-beast Caliban (Gareth Bain).
Long years later, when a ship carrying the king of Naples and the deceitful duke of Milan passes the island, Prospera creates a storm which washes them into her power.
The Tempest is largely a one-man or (in this case) a one-woman play.
The Bard invests all his dramatic power in the central character, this yesteryear politician who, in a new life, has conquered the elements.
Veteran actress Barnard has everything it takes to don the magic Prospera cloak and take control, backed by the machinations of the spirits she rules.
But there is a decidedly maternal element in this production which, I believe, is introduced into the play by changing this from a man’s role to that of a woman.
A familiar mother-daughter amusement is generated.
Emily Bradley is a charming Miranda, coming face to face for the first time in her life with the male of the species.
Her reactions and romantic interludes with Ferdinand, prince of Naples, (equally charmingly played by Glen McIIroy) are gems.
Gareth Bain is a suitably obnoxious Caliban and plays his role well, though his reptilian costume is not ideal.
Something less elaborate might better project the image of base humanity not quite evolved.
Shakespeare gives the bad men - Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian - little opportunity to show any style and they have to be content with being foils to Prospera.
Actors Leslie Speyers, Jacques Baptiste and Ray Saunders are adept enough to carry this off.
But the Bard does not stint his comic characters in the same way, giving Tim Collier (as the drunken Stephano) and Chloe Shelton (buffoon Trincula) a field day on stage, capturing audience approval from the start.
A huge compliment has to go to both the diction of all the actors and the sound system.
Dialogue came floating across the greensward with almost absolute clarity, no mean feat at Mannville.
It is strange to think of The Tempest as coming from the same brain which wrought the intricacies of A Midsummer Night's Dream or the complicated human emotions of Hamlet.
It is foremost entertainment to please.
The Herald
Friday, February 26, 2016.
Back-stage talent steps into limelight
CREATIVE SPIRIT: Jamie-Lee Reynolds, centre, designed the stage makeup for Ariel spirits Anke Staphorst, left, and Amy Huntly, in 'The Tempest'. Photograph: IVOR MARKMAN
Ivor Markman
When Jamie-Lee Reynolds arrived at the Mannville theatre in September last year to audition for Shakespeare's The Tempest, director Helen Flax thought "the techie" (a backstager) had come to support the "twirlies" (actors).
So she was a little taken aback when Reynolds said: "Actually, I'm here to audition!"
Flax had come to know Reynolds for her excellent stage makeup on productions like Hamlet.
But it turns out Reynolds, 21, had been acting since she was "a wee little kid" and once played Mary in a Nativity play.
“I’ve always enjoyed being in front of a crowd, being somebody else, putting on different clothes, and embodying somebody who’s not me,” said Reynolds.
Her first go at doing theatrical makeup was in 2008 when theatre personality Linda-Louise Swain staged a series of three one-act plays at Pearson High School.
Her first Shakespearean production was Hamlet in 2013, when Swain asked her to do make-up.
For The Tempest, Reynolds is both actor and makeup artist.
Her creative make-up for the three Ariels is one of the most striking visual impressions of the play.
Flax wanted something starting from the neck - she wanted blue, big and bold. Reynolds has managed to transform human faces into mystical sprites.
First she went to the internet and searched for ideas but for once, nothing online impressed her.
“Something I have actually been struggling with is going beyond the eyebrow.
“So I thought, 'OK, this is your chance, you're going to go beyond the eyebrow’” .
"That's where the big flick came from and I've got a thing with always making cheeks very 'stand outey'.
"They've got blue and I know how to contour to enhance other features.
"More makeup on the blue makes it look mystical and fantastical," she said.
Reynolds also made long black nails with incredible detail for the character Caliban, but unfortunately the effect would have been lost to the audience.
"I knew it's there, he knew it's there, the cast knew it's there but the audience wouldn't so we did away with the nails, which was sad," she said.
“They kept falling off during the rehearsals, probably because I hadn’t shaped them yet.
“Also the length would be cumbersome, something he’s not used to. He couldn’t pick up things.
Reynolds was originally meant to do all the make-up but was under a lot of pressure, so she asked for help.
Now the other actors have pitched in to help, with some doing their own make-up and others assisting those unable to do their own.
· Tickets to The Tempest are R65 for adults and R40 for school block bookings: call Helen on (041) 581-1738.
Weekend Post
February 27, 2016.