Preview: (Re)Present Monologue Night

In the midst of mid-term Cambridge theatre appears the fresh, radical, and exciting (Re)Present Monologue Night. I went down to the ADC to watch a handful of rehearsals and interview a couple of the actors who are bringing these student-written monologues to life.

(Re)Present aims to give voice, expression, and agency to the previously underrepresented characters of Renaissance drama. Anna Freeman, the creator behind the show, devised the idea “when reading Renaissance plays”, realising that many brilliant characters are “often undercut by the conditions of their writing. This might be due to the writer’s own prejudices, but it is also symptomatic of the social, cultural, theatrical and religious contexts in which they were being performed.”

Image credits: Charlotte Bunney

Issues of gender, race and class are (re)presented and subsequently re-explored. Anna Freeman continues, “The powerful kernels that dramatists did sow in their characters can be allowed to properly flourish. Or, the characters they wrote can be wrenched out of their original contexts, and reapplied to our own.”

Image credits: Charlotte Bunney

Alexander Tsang, the actor behind the (re)presented Caliban from The Tempest described how the monologue will tease out Caliban’s dilemma of either “reconciling with nature” or becoming more “ambitious”. In the context of student theatre, the night will provide a “fresh experience” for both actor and audience. Furthermore, it is an opportunity to “dig deeper” into the themes of Shakespeare’s oeuvre, too often glossed over by the “grandeur” of his canonical name.

Tayo Adewole will bring to life the Porter from Macbeth. The character from only a sole scene in the tragedy will now take centre stage to give a new perspective on the play, one not from the nobility or the supernatural, but one of a “normal person”.

Image credits: Charlotte Bunney

The night seems to be one of exciting rehabilitation of characters otherwise only half-remembered. It will be a night of great diversity – in character and style – ranging from prose to verse, from characters with no lines in the original text to those characters with fascinating “charged critical and receptive histories”. And it’s not just Shakespeare, either! Gloriana will make an appearance from Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.

Don’t miss this thrilling and new project. Head down to the ADC Theatre on Tuesday 22^nd at 11pm to hear the silent voices speak up – I’ll certainly be there. You can get your tickets here. 

Feature image credits: Charlotte Bunney