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dime_novel_hero) wrote2013-11-27 07:53 pm
dime_novel_hero) wrote2013-11-27 07:53 pm
The Birth of Steampunk Merlin
The theater company of Pitt at Greensburg has offered up a production of “The Birth of Merlin” by William Shakespeare and Walter Rowley but with a steampunk twist. I first heard of it from a posting online where the theater arts director was looking for advice on judging a steampunk costume contest. I have never judged a costume contest but I have been judged in contests (and even won a few) so I offered up what I thought would be appropriate criteria for judging.
In judging steampunk costuming I think higher marks should be given for those that present a more science fiction or alternate history aesthetic over simply those that are of the Victorian period. And secondly, as with all costuming, I think higher marks should be given to those costumes that are made in whole or in part over those that have been purchased off the rack. My own costuming tends to be at the lower end of both of those scales. If I wanted to be more steampunk, I would wear my “adventurer” outfit including gunleather, katana and ray gun in the shoulder holster. However, I decided on simply a vest, tailcoat, goggles and Tesla coil fez. Gunleather and sword is awkward for sitting in a college theater seat.
At the contest before the performance there was only one other contestant. She had gone with the interwar period short military-style coat with medals and “glue some gears on it” accessories. Applying my own criteria, she would have won the higher marks for DIY but neither of us particularly put forward a science fiction theme. She won the 1st prize, and rightfully so.
On with the show.
“The Birth of Merlin” is apparently one of the Shakespearian Apocrypha, those attributed to Shakespeare but unable to be confirmed as such. The general scholarly conclusion tends towards this not being Shakespeare’s work and probably not even that of Rowley but likely the work of someone else.
Be that as it may, here is the plot of the story: Prince Uther is missing and his brother King Aurelius meets with an emissary from the recently defeated Saxons. Aurelius falls in love with the beautiful female diplomat and immediately proposes marriage to seal the peace.
Cut to the woods where the very pregnant Joan and her brother are searching for the missing father. Uther shows up searching for a beauteous woman he had dallied with in the forest. Is Uther the father of Joan’s child? He denies it, is found by knights sent by his brother and returns to court. It turns out that the Devil (yes, the Devil himself) is the father of Joan’s child.
Cut back to court. The wedding is over. Uther discovers that his brother’s new wife, the Saxon representative, was the woman he had met in the forest. There is intrigue, betrayal, treason and a falling out between the royal brothers.
Joan’s child is born a full adult. This is Merlin. After some settling of accounts with his devil of a father he enters the political machinations, prophesies a giant rock falling on the Saxon king, sorts things out with the Saxon plot to overthrow the Britons and announces that Uther’s son will be a great king.
OK, that’s an overly simplistic synopsis but you get the picture. The twist is that this is steampunk. The Britons are all in Victorian garb and the villain Saxons are vampires.
I liked the vampire idea. The Saxons are the villains, and that is made clear from square one, so why not make them the living dead? On the minus side, however, I think they may have done the teeth wrong. I noticed that the actors had a difficult time enunciating through the fangs. I might have suggested that the vampire fangs not be on the canines but on the next teeth forward. Firstly, it makes them more visible to the audience but, more importantly, it’s a little easier to be understood.
All the armed characters wore swords. I might have thought that with the steampunk/Victorian era theme there might be more guns and of either traditional or ray-gun varieties. There was not a lot of fighting on display so guards standing around with tesla coil guns and such would have been wholly doable, from a direction point of view, of course. As a practical matter, building guns and gun looking things might not be in the budget. Plywood swords are cheap and easy.
In writing this I just had a geek thought. There are several instances where magic is employed, mostly by someone like Merlin gesturing and causing the other person to freeze. Sonic screwdriver? Too much, I should think, but having the actors employ some sort of technology to effect these otherwise magical actions would suit the steampunk staging.
I don’t have a lot of experience with live Shakespearian theater, most of my recent theater outings have been with the Savoyard's’ Gilbert & Sullivan, so I’m not sure I’m a good judge of theater performance. The main characters seemed comfortable and projected well. Some of the minor characters tended to present a little more hesitatingly which, I would expect, was why they ended up with secondary characters. I already mentioned the issue with the vampire teeth. The Saxon general glowered very well. The other Saxon attendants vamped it up well.
The clown (the unnamed uncle of Merlin) was probably the best performance, not only in terms of character but of performance. General Edoll, the Countess of Chester stole the scenes she was in. In one, Uther and the king’s advisors had realized that the Saxons were conspiring to overthrow Aurelius and acted to convince the king of the threat. When the king branded them as traitors General Edoll, with swords drawn, bellowed for him to essentially STFU.
The crowd went “Ooooooo.”
After the show I got a change to talk to the director and the costume designer. They graciously invited me to join them and the cast and crew at TGIFridays.
The director is writing a steampunk graphic novel but has unsurprisingly fallen behind on NANOWRIMO. He wouldn’t tell me more.
I learned that the original play had been something on the order of five acts and had been cut down to two.
The cyber Goths that were the narrator and the Devil’s attendants cost $500. Lots of shopping at Hot Topic. There was also a lot of other expensive costuming so that would explain why something like guns were not in the budget.
I almost wore my red vest, tails and red felt fez because I like the color contrast. That would have been the exact same Gentleman’s Emporium vest and matching tails as worn by The Devil. Awkward. Instead I chose the black vest to match the more steampunky black velvet Tesla-coil fez and unintentionally grabbed the frock coat instead of the tails going out the door.
Theater has been picking up steampunk in the last few years. Just this week, Sarah Barnes on Steampunk Empire posted a questionnaire about steanmpunk Shakespeare. I recall hearing of “The Tempest” and Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” being steampunked. A search of the internet adds “Richard III”, “As You Like It.”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (which was also interpreted as the film “Wormtooth Nation”), “Oliver”, and “The Sorcerer”.
Expect more.
In judging steampunk costuming I think higher marks should be given for those that present a more science fiction or alternate history aesthetic over simply those that are of the Victorian period. And secondly, as with all costuming, I think higher marks should be given to those costumes that are made in whole or in part over those that have been purchased off the rack. My own costuming tends to be at the lower end of both of those scales. If I wanted to be more steampunk, I would wear my “adventurer” outfit including gunleather, katana and ray gun in the shoulder holster. However, I decided on simply a vest, tailcoat, goggles and Tesla coil fez. Gunleather and sword is awkward for sitting in a college theater seat.
At the contest before the performance there was only one other contestant. She had gone with the interwar period short military-style coat with medals and “glue some gears on it” accessories. Applying my own criteria, she would have won the higher marks for DIY but neither of us particularly put forward a science fiction theme. She won the 1st prize, and rightfully so.
On with the show.
“The Birth of Merlin” is apparently one of the Shakespearian Apocrypha, those attributed to Shakespeare but unable to be confirmed as such. The general scholarly conclusion tends towards this not being Shakespeare’s work and probably not even that of Rowley but likely the work of someone else.
Be that as it may, here is the plot of the story: Prince Uther is missing and his brother King Aurelius meets with an emissary from the recently defeated Saxons. Aurelius falls in love with the beautiful female diplomat and immediately proposes marriage to seal the peace.
Cut to the woods where the very pregnant Joan and her brother are searching for the missing father. Uther shows up searching for a beauteous woman he had dallied with in the forest. Is Uther the father of Joan’s child? He denies it, is found by knights sent by his brother and returns to court. It turns out that the Devil (yes, the Devil himself) is the father of Joan’s child.
Cut back to court. The wedding is over. Uther discovers that his brother’s new wife, the Saxon representative, was the woman he had met in the forest. There is intrigue, betrayal, treason and a falling out between the royal brothers.
Joan’s child is born a full adult. This is Merlin. After some settling of accounts with his devil of a father he enters the political machinations, prophesies a giant rock falling on the Saxon king, sorts things out with the Saxon plot to overthrow the Britons and announces that Uther’s son will be a great king.
OK, that’s an overly simplistic synopsis but you get the picture. The twist is that this is steampunk. The Britons are all in Victorian garb and the villain Saxons are vampires.
I liked the vampire idea. The Saxons are the villains, and that is made clear from square one, so why not make them the living dead? On the minus side, however, I think they may have done the teeth wrong. I noticed that the actors had a difficult time enunciating through the fangs. I might have suggested that the vampire fangs not be on the canines but on the next teeth forward. Firstly, it makes them more visible to the audience but, more importantly, it’s a little easier to be understood.
All the armed characters wore swords. I might have thought that with the steampunk/Victorian era theme there might be more guns and of either traditional or ray-gun varieties. There was not a lot of fighting on display so guards standing around with tesla coil guns and such would have been wholly doable, from a direction point of view, of course. As a practical matter, building guns and gun looking things might not be in the budget. Plywood swords are cheap and easy.
In writing this I just had a geek thought. There are several instances where magic is employed, mostly by someone like Merlin gesturing and causing the other person to freeze. Sonic screwdriver? Too much, I should think, but having the actors employ some sort of technology to effect these otherwise magical actions would suit the steampunk staging.
I don’t have a lot of experience with live Shakespearian theater, most of my recent theater outings have been with the Savoyard's’ Gilbert & Sullivan, so I’m not sure I’m a good judge of theater performance. The main characters seemed comfortable and projected well. Some of the minor characters tended to present a little more hesitatingly which, I would expect, was why they ended up with secondary characters. I already mentioned the issue with the vampire teeth. The Saxon general glowered very well. The other Saxon attendants vamped it up well.
The clown (the unnamed uncle of Merlin) was probably the best performance, not only in terms of character but of performance. General Edoll, the Countess of Chester stole the scenes she was in. In one, Uther and the king’s advisors had realized that the Saxons were conspiring to overthrow Aurelius and acted to convince the king of the threat. When the king branded them as traitors General Edoll, with swords drawn, bellowed for him to essentially STFU.
The crowd went “Ooooooo.”
After the show I got a change to talk to the director and the costume designer. They graciously invited me to join them and the cast and crew at TGIFridays.
The director is writing a steampunk graphic novel but has unsurprisingly fallen behind on NANOWRIMO. He wouldn’t tell me more.
I learned that the original play had been something on the order of five acts and had been cut down to two.
The cyber Goths that were the narrator and the Devil’s attendants cost $500. Lots of shopping at Hot Topic. There was also a lot of other expensive costuming so that would explain why something like guns were not in the budget.
I almost wore my red vest, tails and red felt fez because I like the color contrast. That would have been the exact same Gentleman’s Emporium vest and matching tails as worn by The Devil. Awkward. Instead I chose the black vest to match the more steampunky black velvet Tesla-coil fez and unintentionally grabbed the frock coat instead of the tails going out the door.
Theater has been picking up steampunk in the last few years. Just this week, Sarah Barnes on Steampunk Empire posted a questionnaire about steanmpunk Shakespeare. I recall hearing of “The Tempest” and Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” being steampunked. A search of the internet adds “Richard III”, “As You Like It.”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (which was also interpreted as the film “Wormtooth Nation”), “Oliver”, and “The Sorcerer”.
Expect more.