Sport For Jove Theatre Company Celebrates Shakespeare's 450th Birthday

SYDNEY - Feb. 27, 2014 - PRLog -- In 2014, Sport for Jove will continue to build on its energetic relationship with Sydney’s Seymour Centre and with the theatre that they value very deeply in the geographical heart of Sydney, the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta.

Sport For Jove’s largest indoor repertory theatre season is a passionate celebration of Shakespeare’s 450^th Birthday, a landmark that promises enormous undertakings from companies all around the globe, to explore and respond to the indelible impression this artist has made on our lives in literature, in theatre and in our appreciation of what it is to be human. His remains the most complete portrait of the human species we have and Sport for Jove looks forward to doing our bit in celebrating this milestone by performing a repertory season of two of his most remarkable plays – dark comedies that cut to the heart of his joyous yet subversive perspective on love and family. Twelfth Night, or What You Will, and the dangerous comedy, not seen in Sydney for decades, All’s Well That Ends Well. Both plays, arguably written in the same year, map the same territory in starkly different ways, offering wonderful comedy set within an agonizing melancholia – a self-induced funk of unrequited love and poisonous vanity that must inevitably pay a price.

Sport For Jove’s Twelfth Night is a hilarious and moving voyage of discovery performed to critical acclaim outdoors in 2012; the hit production was described by the Sydney Morning Herald as “…Ryan’s accomplished, clear and free-spirited production is the play entire...absolute clarity of intention from its performers…typified by generosity of spirit” (Jason Blake, SMH)

This production transports its audience with the insatiable spirit of a summer holiday right to the waters edge, and between heat and storms, idyll and ice-cream, we witness a ‘miracle’ – the restoration of family. Along the way, we are made to think of things that touch us close to home – the voice of refugees, stranded souls seeking asylum on islands of plenty, the thirst for revenge and the pains and pleasures of love. And as any family knows, on holidays, we never entirely escape our demons, indeed, we tend to pack them with us.

If you want something, go out and get it. Perhaps that’s not as easy as it sounds. Shakespeare tests it many times, all with disastrous results – Macbeth has a go and loses his head. Iago had it under control til he underestimated his wife. Edmund falls at the final hurdle. Cassius and Brutus have a spectacular crack at it but to no avail. Hamlet never really had a clue and Romeo and Juliet…well they never had a chance.

But in All’s Well That Ends Well Helena, Shakespeare’s most resourceful heroine, succeeds where all else fail. She knows that luck is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and there are no lengths to which she will not go to get her man. If the end justifies the means, then all’s well that ends well. You’ll be surprised by what determination can do and you’ll be surprised by Shakespeare in this rarely performed but astonishingly bold play, brought to life with the Sport for Jove’s trademark clarity and inventiveness.

You can find more information about the company here (http://www.sportforjove.com.au/), and purchasing tickets for Riverside Theatre here (http://riversideparramatta.com.au/show/twelfth-night-3/) and Seymour Centre here (http://www.seymourcentre.com/genre/drama/).