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Since Max Rubin, founded Lodestar Theatre Company in 2005 and consequently developed the Liverpool Shakespeare Festival, which stages Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it would be fair to say that the festival’s appeal and popularity has increased year-on-year. Previously, however, productions have taken place in widely differing locations such as St. James Gardens, inside The Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and The Small Concert Room of St. George’s Hall.
This year, however, The LSF has teamed up with the newly refurbished Royal Court Theatre from September 21 until October 13, and Max couldn’t be happier, or more excited. Speaking to Click Liverpool's Chris High, he said: “The Royal Court theatre is very Shakespearian in that those who decide they want to come into the stalls and have a meal and a drink can also turn around to somebody and have a chat without feeling inhibited, whereas those who want the full ‘theatre experience’ of watching the plays can go into the circle.
"That is exactly the way Shakespeare intended his work to be seen at The Globe, and what we’re going to be doing is using the unique element of audience interaction that The Royal Court encourages in all of its shows.
"It’s almost as though when an actor the audience recognises walks on stage that they claim them for themselves, which gives an unpretentiousness and honesty to their productions that cannot be found anywhere else in the city and it is so easy to understand why The Royal Court has the reputation of being seen as The People’s Theatre.”
Max started Lodestar when he became somewhat disillusioned with being an actor. “I didn’t really like the life and found myself becoming pretty frustrated. The whole idea of creating the company was to create something that was first and foremost actor friendly. The outdoor events we staged, though, were largely the idea of my wife. We were walking our dog in St. James’ Gardens and she just said wouldn’t it be great to stage Shakespeare here in this beautiful setting and she was so right. We don’t do the outdoor venues now, largely because of the weather, but the ethos of the Festival remains in that we are still pretty much site specific.”
With the vast pantheon and diversity of Shakespeare’s work that is available, why have Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream been chosen for this year’s festival? “We were keen to produce two plays that balanced each other out and it’s almost as though these two were designed to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.
"For instance, Macbeth has thirty-seven scenes with dozens of characters whereas Midsummer has just seven scenes and eight main characters. The way we are viewing it, if you like, is that Macbeth is the male production and Midsummer is the female.
"It is the same cast in both plays and some of the actors have lots to do in each, though the texts have been pared down a little so that they both come in at around ninety minutes in length, rather than the usual two hours each.
"Accessibility to the stories is the thing, really, so that both Lodestar’s and The Royal Court’s artistic brief are both firmly met.”
As well Directing Lodestar’s productions, Max is also a Lecturer at LIPA and several of his former students are involved in both plays. “Both LIPA and Lodestar are very keen to encourage local actors who want to stay local to Liverpool, but this is the first time we have worked with any of these actors in any of our shows. Jack Rigby is a former LIPA student and a fabulous young talent, as are Adam Search and Jamie Hampson, who has appeared in several shows before at The Royal Court, so there is very strong LIPA connection which is great not just for the Institute but also for theatre in Liverpool generally.”
It is some task Directing two such diverse plays to run side-by-side, but Max had an ace up his sleeve when it came to getting down to work on them this year. “I knew both of them virtually off by heart beforehand, so it’s more a case of revisiting each play and tweaking things here and there to fit with what we have in mind.
"Both plays are set in 2012 Liverpool and audiences can expect brand spanking new, cutting-edge productions of two of Shakespeare’s best known and most popular plays. Both are really dynamic and have taken around nine months to design and fit together, so that we have two, large cast, Shakespeare plays with all the bells and whistles in place.
"Both shows are really incredibly rich and the audiences who come and see should really expect to be amazed.”
For more information about Lodestar visit www.lodestartheatre.co.uk
