ON STAGE
What: Cymbeline
Where: The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific (505 Quayle Rd.) and Memorial Park (1200 Esquimalt Rd.)
When: July 3-15 (Horticulture Centre of the Pacific) and July 16-18 (Memorial Park)
Tickets: $25 (children 12 and under free) from
The Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival looks and feels quite different in 2021, from its outdoor locations and site capacity to the nature of its programming.
That鈥檚 not necessarily a bad thing, according to Karen Lee Pickett. The pandemic has made the festival鈥檚 longtime artistic director adaptable to a medium in motion, and the company has accepted change as a constant heading into the festival鈥檚 30th year of production.
In previous years, the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival staged two productions at locations in Esquimalt and Saanich over the course of two separate weekends. New locations are in play this year. Gone is the Camosun College Lansdowne campus, the festival鈥檚 primary home since 2005; in its place is the picturesque Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, a nine-acre botanical garden in Saanich.
Satellite performances held at Saxe Point in Esquimalt since 2017 have now been moved several blocks up Fraser Street to Memorial Park. The festival has also reduced its programming this year from two shows to a single production, Shakespeare鈥檚 romantic tragedy, Cymbeline.
As one of the longest-running theatre festivals of any kind in the city, the changes aren鈥檛 insurmountable; fans who love the festival鈥檚 outdoor interpretations of the Bard are a dedicated lot. But yet more changes following the 2020 festival鈥檚 last-minute cancellation, two months shy of opening night, has forced Pickett to plan for a range of possibilities.
The provincial health authority鈥檚 announcement Tuesday that live events will reopen with limited in-person audiences on Thursday, as per the third stage of 颅sa国际传媒 re-start, was the latest in a long line of surprises, Pickett said. 鈥淚n terms of audiences, we chose the new locations because they could accommodate 50 people. Having to switch staging on the fly is challenging, but it is what it is right now.鈥�
Camosun College鈥檚 decision to shut down use of its property by non-campus organizations meant Pickett spent much of her time mapping out the festival鈥檚 future, not focusing her complete on attention on directing the cast of 12 through their paces. Work on the production began in late January, with livestreaming as a distinct possibility. It wasn鈥檛 until the second stage of the provincial restart, details of which were announced in late May, that Pickett had the green light to go forward with limited in-person audiences of 50 people for each performance.
The cast has been transitioning on the fly, she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a smaller festival all around, not only for reasons of social-distancing but also to simplify things. There have certainly been challenges.鈥�
Last year鈥檚 festival would have featured Hamlet and As You Like It, two Shakespeare classics, had it gone forward. Pickett said she chose Cymbeline for this year鈥檚 festival in part because of its relative anonymity. The off-the-radar nature seemed to match the tone of a year of upheaval, she said.
鈥淥ver the years, we have done some lesser-known plays, and recognize that our audience really responds to those productions. The people who come to the festival are really interested those plays which are not on what we call the greatest-hits list. Cymbeline is good because the characters face a lot of challenges. That kind of play is a story that speaks to our situation right now. We鈥檙e all trying to get through this time and have our story make sense.鈥�
