2006 Festival
Hamlet
Click here to view photos from the show
Synopsis
The King of Denmark is dead and has been succeeded by his brother, Claudius. Claudius has also married Gertrude, the widowed Queen. Gertrude's son, Hamlet, is already distressed by his father's death and the hasty remarriage of Claudius and Gertrude; thus, when the King of Denmark’s ghost appears to tell Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet vows revenge. To cover his intentions, he feigns madness.
Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain, whose daughter, Ophelia, is all but betrothed to Hamlet, believes that his madness is caused by repressed love and sets a trap for him. Spied on by Polonius and Claudius, Hamlet encounters Ophelia and violently rejects her.
A Company of Players arrives and Hamlet asks them to perform a play, The Murder of Gonzago, hoping that its similarity to the murder of his own father will force Claudius to betray his guilt. Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. He visits his mother, reviling her for her hasty marriage, and accidentally kills Polonius, who is hiding in the chamber. Claudius sends Hamlet to England, planning to have him murdered.
Laertes, Polonius' son and Ophelia’s brother, returns and demands revenge for his father's death. Ophelia, maddened by grief, has drowned herself. Hamlet returns and confronts Laertes and Claudius at her funeral. Claudius plots with Laertes to kill Hamlet in a fencing match in which Laertes will have a poisoned sword. The plot miscarries and Laertes is killed instead. Gertrude drinks from a poisoned cup intended for Hamlet and also dies. Hamlet, wounded by the poisoned sword, kills Claudius before he, too, dies.
The Taming of the Shrew
Click here to view photos from the show
Synopsis
Baptista Minola, a rich gentleman of Padua, has two daughters – Katharina and Bianca. Sharp-tongued and willful, the elder Katharina terrifies men, while Bianca has many suitors, including the hapless Hortensio and the elderly, wealthy Gremio. Since Baptista refuses to marry off Bianca until he finds a husband for Katharina, Gremio and Hortensio plot together to find such a man.
Enter Petruchio (with his servant Grumio) who, being in search of a wife with a large dowry, is not put off by tales of Katharina's insolent and wayward behaviour. Young Lucentio, traveling from Pisa with his servants, Tranio and Biondello, has barely arrived in Padua when he sees and falls in love at once with Bianca. Hearing that Baptista wants tutors for his daughters, Lucentio disguises himself as a Latin teacher named “Cambio”. Meanwhile, Tranio heartily agrees to impersonate Lucentio.
Hortensio, similarly inspired, disguises himself as a music teacher named “Licio”. Old Gremio is delighted to have found in “Cambio” a schoolmaster who will, he thinks, woo Bianca on his behalf with love poems. Both are put out to discover yet another rival in “Lucentio”, really Tranio in disguise. Petruchio woos Katharina, and finds both her temperament and her fortune very much to his liking, as Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) and the rich but doddery Gremio compete with their respective fortunes to win Bianca.
Petruchio marries Katharina and takes her off to his country house, where he proceeds to 'tame' her by depriving her of sleep and food, and continually contradicting her. Meanwhile, the real Lucentio makes himself known to Bianca and she falls in love with him. Hortensio resigns his claim on Bianca and instead marries a wealthy widow.
To satisfy Baptista’s insistence that “Lucentio’s” father approve the financial settlement, Tranio finds a stranger (a Pedant from Mantua) to impersonate Lucentio's father, Vincentio. Matters are complicated considerably when the real Vincentio turns up unexpectedly.
After the marriage of Lucentio and Bianca, Petruchio takes Katharina back to Padua. No one is ready to believe that Katharina has changed, but she proves them all wrong. Though all three newly married couples apparently live “happily ever after”, some are left to question the true nature of love and the real value of their relationships.
