Amidst missile interceptions and drone strikes, theatre buffs and Shakespeare aficionados are turning to The Bard’s cutting words to convey and process their emotions during these unprecedented times, as part of a worldwide project to bring the prolific playwright to the small screen.

As part of the UK-founded Vertical Shakespeare project’s ‘Sorrow Speaks’ series, Manama Theatre Club (MTC) members have taken the lead on reciting lines from Shakespeare’s body of work that speak to them in these moments of crisis, and are inviting people from all walks of life to join the cause.

“‘Sorrow Speaks’ came from a very direct and human place,” Vertical Shakespeare founder and UK television producer Jonny Wright told GulfWeekly.

The idea for the series took shape after MTC chairperson Hannah Turner reached out to Jonny and suggested doing ‘something simple’ during this moment of crisis to offer people a creative outlet.

“I became interested in the Vertical Shakespeare project some weeks ago before the current situation began,” she added.

“I thought a small project for MTC members might be a good distraction from stress or anxiety.”

The Vertical Shakespeare project was started earlier this year, a few weeks before the US-Israel war with Iran began, with a goal to bring The Bard to the vertical shooting format without changing the words themselves but rather offer a new frame to interpret them.

“Shakespeare is full of language that gives shape to grief and endurance, so we started there,” Jonny said, on how the ‘Sorrow Speaks’ series came together.

“The idea quickly became to open it up so actors and anyone who feels moved to can record a line that resonates with them.

“In doing so it builds a small world of support and solidarity, people speaking words that have helped others through dark moments for centuries.”

According to Jonny, most people today experience stories through a phone held upright in their hand, however Shakespeare continues to be mostly staged or filmed in ways that belong to another era.

“I became interested in what happens if you treat the vertical frame seriously as a cinematic language rather than just a crop of something horizontal,” he added.

“That is where the project began. It is about finding a modern grammar for these plays and meeting audiences where they actually are.”

Jonny has more than a decade of experience across documentary, reality and entertainment, having worked on series including The Apprentice and Dubai Hustle, as well as having written and directed the award-winning short film Ethel starring Miriam Margolyes and Professor Green.

 

How to participate:

Guidelines to stay true to the Vertical Shakespeare’s spirit of making the phone the stage:

•             Film vertical with no sets or costumes.

•             The streets are the stage - use real locations wherever possible

•             Use a single light source (candle, lamp, window, streetlight etc)

•             Speak one line of Shakespeare

•             Look directly into the camera

•             Leave a moment of silence before and after.

•             The words are sacred - don’t modernise Shakespeare. Reframe the world around him.

Jonny and Hannah have picked a few Shakespearean lines that feel powerful in these times.

•             “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”        (Macbeth)

•             “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”  (Hamlet)

•             “Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither.”  (King Lear)

•             “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” (All’s Well That Ends Well)

•             “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.” (The Taming of the Shrew)

You are welcome to choose one of these, or share another that feels relevant to you in these times.

Once recorded, participants can post their video, tagging @verticalshakespeare on Instagram, using the hashtag #givesorrowwords.