Think of a Shakespeare performance as a rowdy, unpredictable sporting event, and you get a sense of what makes No Holds Bard different from anything you’ve seen before.
“Even though you know the rules, you never know how it is going to turn out,” Kate Kissingford said.
She and her husband, John, are co-artistic directors of No Holds Bard, one of only two companies in the nation that perform the “first folio technique.” Kate says that’s a tonier way of saying “unrehearsed.”
The idea is to emulate the performance conditions of the Bard’s day.
“Shakespeare’s own company did not rehearse,” Kate said. “They would perform up to 10 different productions in a two-week period. It was like the multiplex of the day.”
Kissingford and her merry band of 12 open their third summer of free No Holds Bard performances with “Hamlet” and “Much Ado About Nothing” over the next two weeks at the newly refurbished Skyline Park on the 16th Street Mall.
Shakespeare’s actors worked off scrolls, not scripts. And not the published, polished and complete kind we see in stores and schools today. These scrolls included the Bard’s original, extensive directorial and character notes that he tailored for each individual actor. These little nuggets never made it to publication, Kissingford said.
And Shakespeare’s actors were handed only what each needed to know. Each scroll was written for each role. It included only that given character’s cues and dialogue – skipping everything in between. So they never even knew how a given play would end until the first time they performed it.
The Kissingfords likewise pass out individually tailored scrolls to their highly trained actors, but just an hour before the first performance. Their job is to absorb Shakespeare’s notes and to then create their characters almost as immediately as an improv comedian speaks on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
By showtime, “It’s all adrenaline,” Kissingford said. “When you don’t feel secure in knowing what happens next, that keeps people on their toes.”
Granted, each actor will bring in his or her own individual history with a given play, especially well-known titles such as “Hamlet.” But, Kissingford said, “You’d be surprised how few actors have actually read ‘Measure for Measure.”‘
The resulting performances are not seamless. “And that’s the good news,” she said.
“In a rehearsed production, the goal is not to make a mistake at all costs. Well, with us, actors will make mistakes, and we just laugh it off and have a good time. Believe me, when we screw things up, the audience eats it up. That’s why it’s so much fun.”
Especially while performing a tragedy.
“We were only doing comedies for a long time before we thought, ‘Why not try a serious play?”‘ she said. “We had no idea how funny ‘Hamlet’ can be.
“It’s funny!”
After two weeks in Skyline Park, No Holds Bard, which is funded by sponsors and in-kind support, takes its two shows on the road through August to locales such as Greenwood Village, Littleton, Parker, Paonia, Ridgway, Ouray and Parker.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
To view a video demonstration of a No Holds Bard performance, .
No Holds Bard
THEATER | Directed by John and Kate Kissingford | Starring Step Pearce, Lindsay Pierce, David Blumenstock and ensemble | THROUGH JULY 21 | At Skyline Park, 16th Street Mall at Arapahoe Street (if rain: Tabor Center food court)|All shows 6 p.m.: “Hamlet” tonight, Tuesday and July 21; “Much Ado About Nothing” Sunday and Thursday | FREE | 303-949-2642,
