Piccolo Spoleto hosts diverse Shakespeare performances

Throughout the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, audiences can experience the work of William Shakespeare in new ways.

Paul Rolfes, who teaches theater at the College of Charleston and co-directed one of the Piccolo productions, said Shakespeare’s understanding of people makes his work timeless.

“He was really great at writing about human beings and the human experience,” Rolfes said. “That is all still true today as far as how we approach our relationships.”

Shakespeare’s Magic Show

In his original one-man act “Shakespeare’s Magic Show,” magician George Younts mixes bemusing tricks and theatrical anecdotes to help audiences crack Shakespeare’s code.

The 55-minute show features an array of illusions designed to explain concepts behind Shakespeare’s best known works, such as iambic pentameter and antithesis.

“They’re going to get fun perplexing magic tricks, and they’re going to learn about what tools an actor uses to make Shakespeare work on stage and be clear,” he said.

In one bit, Younts uses a card trick to explain Shakespeare’s affinity for puns, something that may not be recognizable to modern audiences.

“Due to the way that language has changed over the years, a lot of his rhymes are punny, but we don’t pronounce the words the way they did back then, so those meanings are lost on us,” Younts said.

Younts, who teaches theater at the Charleston County School of the Arts, said magic and acting are similar: “It’s reality that’s not real, but is fun, and you can learn something from it.”

“Shakespeare’s Magic Show” has one more performance on Friday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cannon Street Arts Center. See here to find tickets.

“In Love and Death“

As part of its 17th season of Stelle di Domani series, the College of Charleston Department of Theatre and Dance presents “In Love and Death,” a performance that weaves pivotal moments from Shakespeare’s plays into a dreamlike narrative.

Presented in partnership with the Charleston Library Society, “In Love and Death” displays a mixture of love, death, dream and fight scenes from Shakespeare plays including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet” and “Richard III.” These sequences are combined to create a dreamlike scenario from a writer’s perspective.

“These scenes occur sort of in the way dreams frequently come to us,” said co-director Evan Parry. “Part of a story occurs to us, then we find ourselves going in a new direction and then we return to that original dream.”

While these plays may seem thematically mismatched, Parry, who also plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father and King Henry VI, said this combination provides “a holistic view of Shakespeare’s writing,” revolving around the common ideas of love, death and dreaming these works share.

“It’s kind of a fruitcake, a melange of influences from various Shakespeare plays,” Parry said.

The show will also be performed as “Shakespeare on the Steps – ‘In Love and Death,’” a singular abbreviated, outdoor performance on the steps of the Charleston Library Society.

Parry said the outdoor performance offers a sense of interactivity theatrical productions might lack.

“People, when they go to traditional theater, don’t feel the freedom to interact with what they’re seeing,” he said. “Whereas when you’re outside, there’s a lot more of that, and people want to interact, and even in some cases talk back to the actors.”

“In Love and Death” will be performed at the College of Charleston’s Chapel Theater June 5 at 6 p.m. and June 6 at 2 p.m. The “Shakespeare on the Steps” performance will take place at the Charleston Library Society on June 9 and is free to the public, though donations are accepted. Find tickets and times here.

Ethan Stinson is an arts journalism and communications graduate student at Syracuse University.