Now I’m not so concerned

When we first went into rehearsals for Robin Hood I was concerned with my interpretation of the police. In the show, they’re essentially depicted (with the exception of one do-gooder) as robotic bullies who just follow orders. They lack sensitivity when it comes to dealing with the social problems that plague our society and don’t so much as serve and protect the community but rather keep it in line. In line with what? The status quo, the legal system, the powers-that-be, the insert system-of-control here, etc. Was this a fair assessment? Maybe not. A broad generalization? Perhaps. However, Robin Hood is, in essence, a romance and an adventure. These genres have clearly defined bad guys and good guys with little room for the complex grey area that many of us (most of us?) occupy.
 
The classic story features guards and knights as henchmen and corrupt monarchy and church officials as the ruling bad guys. In modernizing the story, the obvious contemporary equivalent for knights and guards seemed to be the police.  Moreover, I didn’t have to look much further past the BC Liberals and federal Conservatives to find my version of the ruling bad guys. 
 
The “Cops and Politicians are bad” brush stroke I’ve painted Robin Hood with serves mainly as a comedic device. Its fun for me, as a writer, to mock and denigrate those who wield and abuse power and hopefully it will be fun for you, the viewer, the watch and laugh along with it. It’s easy to feel powerless sometimes no matter how often other people bend over backwards trying to remind us we live in a democracy. I’d argue that true democracy has never been known. Not to us. Not even close. However that, alas, is another blog post altogether.
 
I considered toning down my mockery and watering down the satire for fear of not presenting an accurate representation of society. And then I saw this:
 


 
And this:
 



 
And on the local front there was this:
 

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/07/22/bc-civil-liberties-police-push-ms-woman-video.html

 
I don’t think any of us will soon forget this. If you don’t want to see a man killed by the police then I suggest you DON’T watch this link:
 



 
Needless to say, now I’m not so concerned. 

-Sebastien Archibald

Epic Battles

If you ask me one of the best things about the story of Robin Hood is the epic battles. This has been an awesome challenge for us with our modern adaptation.  We’ve taken the anachronistic approach and  have sword fights, a knife versus taser fight, a quarterstaff battle and much more.  This past weekend we held a fundraiser (our 5th of 5 in the past 2 months! More on this to come…) where we gave the attendees a sample of some of the fighting. I thought I’d give you a glimpse as well.

Robin vs Nottingham

Playwright Archibald trades in his pen for a sword

The Great Outdoors

The brave and powerful team!

This weekend Robin Hood moved in to Queen Elizabeth Park after several weeks of rehearsals at the Carousel Theatre studios.  Moving a promenade show in to a park is an awesome process that involves taking the perfectly crafted scenes that were blocked in a nice quiet studio, ripping them apart and reassembling them to suit the outdoor environment.  There are always many moments of hilarity, tension, luck and sheer genius during this initial leap in to the great outdoors.

These first days of outdoor rehearsal involve a lot of these things: sunscreen, running around a giant pond, the gawking public, curious seniors, bug spray, exhausted sighs, sun burns, ice cream man!, more sunscreen, “what are you doing here? Is this some kind of play?”, children walking through scenes and standing way too close to kissing actors (awkward!), avoiding piles of poop, tourists walking through fight scenes to take photos, popsicles, more bug spray, “Colby enter from the stage left bush and Kaitlin come from behind the stage right rock cross left down to this pile of dirt” etc.

Did I mention that it’s a truly unique and magical experience?  We’ve been doing this now for six years and I still love it.

Rebecca Coleman filmed this video in the park this past weekend. I am attempting to tell you why I think you should see Robin Hood.

Garbage Bag Chic

Thumbs up for puppets!

As I write this I am very excited.  I have recently made a fantastic discovery.  Her name is Ren.  She’s a young designer who came out of the blue and is making my Robin Hood directorial  dreams a reality.  The aesthetic concept for the show is garbage bag chic (thank you to The City for the term!).  I wanted it to look as if it had been built out of garbage and random materials that had been found and brought together to tell the story. The original concept for the script was that the story was being told by the transients and homeless individuals in a tent city.   We strayed from this narrative concept but the aesthetic stuck.

It is potentially an incredibly engaging and fascinating aesthetic but also a very challenging one.  How do you make it clear that this is an aesthetic concept and not a show that was just throw together with materials you had lying around?  We’ve discovered that this can be done through exaggeration, humour and attention to detail.

Anyway, back to Ren.  Ren has the challenge of building 3 character masks, 2 giant puppets (Bread and Puppet theatre style), 4 ‘potatoe head masks’ (photos to come!) and 2 sportscaster puppets.  Lots for one person to conceive and build!

The original idea with the sportscaster puppets was for them to be muppets but Ren expanded that idea and made them in to garbage muppets.  As you can see the resulting puppets are awesome!

Ren and her basketball head puppet

Robin Hood – Poster Sneak Peek

The posters for our irreverent and modern adaptation of Robin Hood are being printed and posted this week.  Rachale Cavanagh, our awesome poster/flyer designer, modified an image taken by Devon Taylor featuring Chris Wilson as Robin Hood (he’s not actually playing Robin Hood in the show though.  Chris Cook is playing Robin Hood in the show while Chris Wilson is on a Fringe tour with The Peter n’ Chris Show – tangent).

Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll soon be seeing all over Vancouver:

Stealing from a rich @$$hole near you

To find out more about Robin Hood visit our webpage or RSVP to the Facebook event